


The Double Rose

by Mari_who



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic), Tam Lin (Traditional Ballad)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, Folklore, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23747209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mari_who/pseuds/Mari_who
Summary: A brave young maiden stumbles across a mysterious manor deep in the woods, and decides to explore, not knowing who awaits her...
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Lore Olympus)
Comments: 156
Kudos: 277





	1. At The Fair

_Other worlds, other times…_

"You _scandal!_ You would _never!_ "

See these youths on a summer's night, laughing and challenging each other in the light of a festival bonfire. Scents of roast meat and spilled ale, sound of lutes strummed and drums struck. Farming villages for miles around had emptied of anyone that could spare a night away. Merchant wagons and travelling players had arrived that morning, or the night before, to set up their stages or tents or even just wares spread over a blanket on the grass. Yesterday this had been an empty clearing in the western Kingswood; today it was a kaleidoscope...a fairyland.

It was the best thing Kore had ever seen.

"I would indeed," she stated proudly to her giggling friends. "My hand to God, you faithless, I would climb it this very night!"

"Hush your _blasphemous mouth_ ," Her friend Meg whispered fiercely. "You little ale-sot, you'll have us all whipped! I'll not go through that again!"

"That wasn't a whipping, Meggie-meg! All that fuss over a few smacks on your bum from Sister Athena!" Hermes said, and added action to words, lightly striking Meg's backside with an open palm. She squealed with rage and gave chase, the two of them quickly vanishing into the crowd.

Eros shook his head and tutted, solemn and disapproving, but the rakishly tilted circlet of flowers atop his curls ruined the illusion. "Raucous children!"

"Aye, but let them play," Kore said with a fond smile. "Age comes soon enough! Too soon, in truth." Her smile faded a bit, with the words; but she shook her head, dark curls bouncing, and made an effort toward joy. She looked up at Eros puckishly. "You believe me, best of comrades, do you not? I'd not fear some hoary old wife's tale."

"Yes, old love, fine, you've the stoutest heart and the nimblest fingers in all Christendom." He rolled his eyes, but pulled the girl - young lady - into a fond embrace. "Nevertheless, please don't go climbing towers in the deep, dark forest in your new dress that I had made for you. 'Twould've cost a pretty penny had not that dressmaker's apprentice owed me a favor!"

"Aye, a favor indeed," Kore murmured with a sly glance, and watched as her friend turned crimson.

"Hist, woman, you _will_ get me a whipping," he warned through the blush. She grinned and straightened his floral circlet with a deft hand, though she stretched up on tip-toes to reach. Kore had many gifts, but height was not among them.

"You've no worry, charmer," she told him. "But one busy tongue to my mother and it's the nunnery for me, sure as springtime, which I'd ne'er see again. But this…" she smiled out at the fair, at its bustle and hum. "Tis worth the risk. Odds are a convent wall's no harder to climb than one of Demeter's apple trees, at that."

"Saints preserve us, I can see it now. The Sheriff and all his dogs chasing you through the Kingswood. Mayhap you'll find a handsome bandit to wed you, and live among the trees like wild elfs!" He took ahold of her ears, trying to pull them into points, and she laughed and squirmed away. 

"Villein! Cad!" 

"Scold! Mooncalf!"

Laughing, Kore ran into the crowd and, laughing, Eros followed.

***

Not long after, the laughing maid had stopped laughing. It was growing late and she had quite lost track of her companions.

And with ale and wine flowing freely, the crowd was growing...raucous.

Strange faces peered and leered at her as she pushed past drunken fairgoers, recognizing none of them. She pulled close her new green cloak, trying to hide within its deep hood, but her lushly feminine figure was beyond disguise. Men mumbled endearment or grotesque offers, their faces turned to gargoyles' grins in the fire light, and she gasped for breath as she tried to escape. There must be shelter, safety, somewhere in this madness! 

From the shadow of a nearby tent, a hand curled round her upper arm and neatly plucked her out from the milling masses. 

"And what do these eyes see, but a fair maid in need of rescue," said the figure holding her arm, a touch more tightly than she'd have liked. "My evening is complete."

"Th - thank you for your timely intervention, good sir," she said gamely. His face was in shadow. "Might I know your name?"

He sighed a mournful sigh. "Alas, to not be known in one's own homeland! And by the prettiest lass I've seen this night!"

His hand was still on her arm.

He stepped forward into the light, and swept a feathered hat down from a head of golden curls, making a pretty half-bow without releasing her. His cheeks and chin were neatly shorn of hair, though a thin, elaborately waxed mustache remained, and his eyes were a clear and twinkling blue.

"Sir Apollo, knight of the realm, stands before you, sweet maid. And is very, very pleased to meet you."

And sliding his hand down her arm, he caught her fingers, and brought them to his mouth for a lingering kiss. A lingering, presumptive, _moist_ kiss. 

He smelt of cologne, and _uisge beatha_ , and Kore began to feel that she had not found safety, after all. Knights of the realm were romantic figures in girls' stories, saving imperiled maidens and chastely kissing only the cross-hilts of their swords, before just battle against dragons, or Saracens, or some other likely-sounding threat to Christendom.

But she was no foolish child. Her mother had made certain sure of that. In this land, men had...liberties, and knights even more so.

She needed an escape from her escape. 

"How kind of you good sir, how charitable," she answered, trying bravely to hide her inner panic. "Forgive this...silly child for troubling you, sir, I shall take my leave that you may enjoy the fair…" smiling, nervous, she edged back toward the open air.

He did not let go of her hand. 

"Silly child indeed," the golden knight murmured, and reeled her in close. Kore's heart leapt into her throat as he crushed her against his padded doublet. "You're the fairest thing I shall enjoy!"

And he forced his mouth down against hers.

Childhood games aside, this was her first true kiss, and it was awful. His slug of a tongue he forced past her lips, tasting of uisge and roast pork, and she promptly bit him in reply. Wounded, the slug retreated, and its owner bellowed in pain; he raised a gloved hand to strike, but Kore had been taught well, and she sharply hiked her knee up into the space between his thighs.

His face turned pale as cheese, and the bellow choked off in his throat.

Kore wrenched herself free of his nerveless fingers, and fled without a backward glance.

The air outside was full of music, and the droning of pipes and pounding drums echoed her racing heart. She leapt and ducked nimbly through the drunken crowd, moving fast, dodging and circling to obscure her path. A shout rose from behind her, but she ran faster, feeling the wind whip her cloak, faster still as crowd thinned and firelight dimmed, until she dodged not people but trees, and the music faded behind her, and the only light was moonlight high above, streaming down around her like the pillars of heaven.

Eventually she slowed, as the undergrowth choked her path and the forest canopy above shut out the moonlight. She came to rest under a great spreading oak, and caught her breath.

"Oh, God's _foot_ ," she whispered, furious at herself, and not a little frightened. She could see no path or trail; no marking or structure of Man; only trees, broad-boled and ominous, in every direction.

Kore was lost in the Wood.


	2. The Forest

Kore leaned against the great oak, and scrubbed her tired eyes. Faint moonlight lit the glade all silver-blue, but was not enough to show any track or trail beyond her own shoe-prints stumbling in behind her. Forest sounds that had died away at her intrusion slyly returned; a rustle, the cry of a night bird, and though it was still summer warm, a chill drew cold fingers up her spine.

The Forest is not safe for one alone at night. She had been told this all her life.

Kore huffed and took a tight grip on her courage. "Tis only birds and mice," she told herself grimly. "And I am not a mouse to cower in a hole! What I need is a better view."

So resolved, the maid slipped off her shoes and took hold of the oak's lowest limb. Dextrous and strong (and fortunately alone, as she paid no mind at all to modesty regarding the arrangement of her skirts during her ascent), she climbed the old forest-master like a squirrel. A cobwebby owl was her only witness; he turned his head slowly, blinking and hooting at this unexpected guest, then in a soundless flourish of wings, vanished into the night.

Her climb took only minutes. At last, bare feet steady on a thick branch, Kore was able to look out above the forest canopy.

She was adrift in an ocean of green.

Wind swayed the treetops into rustling, rolling waves, lit with whitecaps of moonlight. Her heart swelled unexpectedly at the sight, which surely any other would have found unchancy, a night-sea where elves or dread magical beasts might roam, seeking innocent Christian children to kidnap or devour.

But Kore stood, swaying with the tree, and looked at the night, and loved it.

Eventually she turned to scan the horizon. There - behind her, to the left, a golden glow that danced and flickered; that must be the nfair's bonfire. Not too long a march, and if she stayed mostly true to her course she was bound to meet the dirt path again. She could rejoin her friends, and laugh at her silly adventure, and then...go home…

She didn't want to go home. 

Her childhood was slipping away by the hour, and efforts to hold it would avail her nought. Soon the choice would be before her, ministry or matrimony, the ring or the veil; and not truly her choice, but her mother's. She could guess easily enough which way that stern and pious woman would turn. A life behind walls, then, in a plain little cell, learning herb-lore and Scripture and likely praying until she went quite mad. Were nuns allowed to laugh?

She turned again to the sea of leaves, wishing that God in His mercy had made her a bird instead of a woman.

And there in the darkness, among the trees, she saw the top of a tower.

She gawped. Sure, for a moment, that it was a trick of her eyes and the moving trees. But those trees were moving around it; the tower, topped with a black spire, stayed firm and still.

It looked no further from her than the fair did.

Her heart leapt, unbidden. It was _real_. 

There was never any question what she would do.

***

Reshod and returned to ground, Kore made her way through the forest. Curiosity had burned away her concern. What, after all, was there to harm her? No bears or wolves had been seen here in generations; royal hunters had taken them all for trophies. Bandits were unusual in summer, with more honest work available. And she did not, Kore told herself, believe in elves, fairies, goblins, Black Dogs, or other figments from children’s nursery stories. 

Getting further lost was a legitimate concern; she carried neither food nor water with her, nor compass-needle either, not that she could've read one if she had it. But there was moonlight, and plenty of trees to climb, and gradually she worked her way closer and closer to the spire.

The gate appeared before her so suddenly, she nearly ran headlong into its bars. Tall and forbidding, set in stone walls higher than her head, the brazen gates were green with age and thickly grown with ivy. 

And they were open. Just enough for a person to slip through. 

So she did.

Inside, she found the tower attached to a graceful manor - almost a small keep; all of stone, three stories of it, with a peaked slate roof, and moonlight shimmering off real glass in the windows. 

There was no light but the moon, and no sound but the wind. No horses in the little stable off to her right.

There was the thick, enticing smell of roses.

The grounds had been kept up not too long ago. No scrubby trees or overgrowth choked the space between wall and building. She scurried across, feeling wicked and exposed, and huddled against the tower wall, looking up.

It was a riot of climbing roses; a blanket of them clinging to the stonework, twining over and between and up, up, up to surround the tower's single window, up to the conical roof with its narrow, crenellated widow's walk. Pure white flowers nodded in the wind and caught her with their fragrance, an intoxication richer than wine. 

And just below that window, larger than the rest, two blossoms spread together caught her eye. One white, and the other - she would swear it to God Almighty - was blue.

But there were no blue roses, she thought.

She slipped out of her shoes and set them neatly together at the base of the tower. Breathing deeply, jaw set, flexing her delicate fingers. Beneath the rose blanket, the tower's stonework was rough-faced; plenty of hand- and footholds, if one were careful, and avoided the thorns.

No hazard for Kore, who was young and strong, and had loved to climb since the day her mother had found her escaped from the crib and toddling industriously around their house.

And youth was fleeing from her; and she feared neither fairy story, nor gravity; and she had sworn an oath to her companions, no matter how frivolous.

She set her hands carefully upon the tower, found a foothold, and climbed.

Her blood raced with exultation. Every foot higher felt like escape; thorns scratched her arms and caught at her clothes, but she barely noticed. Closer and closer still came the double rose. The wind came and flirted with her green cloak, tugging playfully, which made her sweat a bit, but it was not enough to loosen her from the stones.

At last her hands found the sill, and the two roses were within reach, white and blue together, and perfect. For a moment she hung there, looking at them. How beautiful, she thought. Surely she would never again see such beauty.

From the ground far below, a growl that froze her heart. She craned her head around carefully, and looked.

Dogs.

Sleek well-kept beasts, three of them, black as a moonless night. Their eyes glinted up at her. One bent its head to sniff at her shoes.

"Oh, damn," she whispered crossly.

It would have to be the window. Strength and youth mayhap, but she could not perch on a tower side forever like a gargoyle. Absently, she plucked the double rose from the wall - its stems twined together in a single thornless length - and held it between her teeth as she climbed another half-foot and reached for the window. Praying fervently that it could open from the outside.

Her prayers were answered, sort of.

Even as she reached for it, the window swung open from the inside, and there facing her - close enough to feel his breath - was a man.

He was tall, not old but no longer young. His features sculpted finely in the moonlight; firm jaw, noble brow, a fierce Patrician nose. His eyes on hers were dark and wide with surprise. His hair was the palest blonde she had ever seen, pale as milk, or moonlight, or white roses.

All this filled her mind in a flash. Without thought to control it, her body jerked with surprise, shifting her weight against the wall.

The stone beneath her left foot cracked sharply, and fell.

She fell with it.


	3. The Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hades' speech in this work uses a lot of thees and thous, while the other characters do not; this is on purpose, to make him sound slightly old-fashioned and stodgy (well, MORE old-fashioned and stodgy) compared to the rest of the cast.

I must be closer to Paradise than to the ground, Kore thought. God forgive my foolishness! Who would live here, alone in the dark?

She clung desperately to the windowsill above her, bare feet kicking in midair, trying to find purchase on the wall again. The unexpected man looked down at her.

“Thief?” He asked calmly.

“Mmff!” she replied around her mouthful of flowers, shaking her head vigorously. Fingers clutching cold stone.

“But those _are_ my roses, in thy mouth,” he mused. “And thee on my lands without even a by-your-leave-m’lord. If I save thee, will I find a bodkin in my back, or some other such foolishness?”

“Mm-mmm!” It is quite difficult to look innocent and harmless when caught committing a crime, but Kore gave it her best.

The man sighed an amused, tolerant sigh. Then he reached out, and down, and closed big hands around her wrists, and before she could make a sound, pulled her in through the open window.

She hit the floor inside and fell, knees weak from her brush with death; the roses dropped from her mouth as she gasped for sweet air and thanked God for His deliverance. Her heart was racing like a hound-chased rabbit. The man, arms folded, observed her silently.

Slowly she regained equilibrium, and sat up, tucking her skirts neatly underneath her. 

What a miserable awkward situation, she reflected. Doubtless she was all sweat and twigs and mussed hair. And dirty bare feet on what felt like a very fine rug. And he, of course, so tall and _quite_ handsome in the moonlight, in a fine warm coat and woolen pants; even his slippers showed quality and care. 

“...God bless and k-keep you for your rescue, m’lord,” she stuttered. “Indeed I’m sorry to have troubled you. If you would call off yon dogs and show me to your door I’ll never darken your… your handsome home again…?”

She felt like a streetcorner urchin begging for coin; felt the blush rise in her face, and hated it.

"Hast brought me no trouble, child, beyond trespass and pulling my flowers; still, leaving thee on thy merry way seems...incomplete." He eased himself down into a carven wooden chair that likely cost more coin than Kore would see in her lifetime. A lamp sat nearby, atop a similarly fine and expensive desk, and he lit it with a little flint-and-steel sparker.

"Now then," he said, and folded his arms across his chest. "Whose child art thou, that I may return thee to thy parents?"

"I am no child, sirrah," Kore said sourly. "I have a little coin if you crave recompense for my intrusion."

"But I have no need of coin," he said. Now, in the lamplight, she could tell that tho' his face was stony and forbidding, his eyes were grey, and full of cool amusement. "I doubt thou hast anything of interest or value; I wish only to return thee to thy family. Certainly they will punish thee better than I could."

"I am no child!" Irate, she stood and balled her hands at her fists. "I lack the blessing of height, tis true, but that signifies nothing of my age! And I haven't even _your_ name; rude, sir, to pull a woman into your home without an introduction."

He leaned towards her, frowning, curious, one eyebrow rising.

"Thou _art_ a child, and a willful and tempestuous one at that; were I thy father I'd have thee over my knee for thy disrespect." Face thunderous; eyes gleaming, amused.

Fury overcame her good sense. The… _churl_ , this _knave_! How dare he! How dare he be home on the one night she needed adventure! How dare he be so smug and so rich and so appealingly handsome!

Reaching up, Kore slipped the pin from her cloak and pulled it apart.

"Do I LOOK like a child?!" She demanded, head held high.

The dress Eros had gotten her was truly the best thing she had ever owned; at first she had feared to put it on. Mother's chosen style for her ran more to the shapeless and concealing; Heaven forbid any man should see her curves...or bare arms, or hair, or a hint of ankle! Then it had taken her near half a glass to let him see her in it. The green silk clung...almost _unwholesomely_ to her form. Ribbon laces held the bodice even tighter, supporting and lifting; seeing herself in his mirrored glass, she had HOWLED and hidden behind a curtain.

But he had cajoled, and petted and praised, and guilted; charming Eros always knew how to get his way...and she had let herself be convinced; and the dress had done her very well at the fair, until the end.

And now it had struck dumb the strange, rude - but _beautiful_ \- man before her.

His face reddened, and for a moment he sputtered like a kettle; then, lurching to his feet, he reached for her...took hold of her cloak...came close enough for Kore to smell his faint cologne, and as her heart lurched within its cage, and she tilted her head up to him...he pulled the cloak closed around her again.

"Dost thee _constantly_ seek to put thyself in danger?" He growled. 

" _Dost thee_ constantly speak like an old granda-by-the-fire?" Still angry, and even more embarrassed, Kore pulled away. "Your name! Or by God I will...I will scream!"

"Aidoneus, lord Hades," he gritted out. "High Judge for the King."

Silence fell like a heavy curtain between them. Kore felt herself grow pale; a cold pit of dread opened in her belly.

"Now." He said, forbiddingly, all humor drained from his iron-grey eyes. "Who...are...you."

Kore covered her face with her hands.

"Kore," she mumbled. "Daughter of the widow Dame Demeter."

Silence, again.

She peeked out between her fingers to see the High Judge's face. He looked...he looked…

He looked worried.

"Well," he sighed. " _Now_ thou hast brought me trouble."


	4. The Night (1)

Lord Hades sighed a weary sigh.

"Child of Demeter," he said. "I shall not keep thee - you - here against your will. But I offer you shelter for the night. I shall not trouble you; there is room here for guests. And regardless of your bravery...or ability...the forest hath its dangers. Even a stumble could ruin you, alone in the dark."

Kore felt strange. The mood had shifted between them, and while she was on more familiar ground - the rules of politeness, how gentility behaved towards each other - she felt stifled, rather than comforted. 

Her mother's name had done this, she realized, and chafed at the knowledge. Was there to be no escape? Not even here?

"You need not alter your speech so, my lord," she told him. "I was wrong to shame you for it."

"Save for the title, thou wast not wrong." He smiled, ruefully. "Come, and I shall show thee where to refresh thyself."

Lamp in hand, he turned towards the door, and hesitated a moment. "Bring thy roses," he reminded her, gentle-voiced. "Didst labor enough for them."

Blushing, Kore stopped to retrieve the flowers, and hastened after her host. 

"I am sorry I took them," she admitted, as they walked down a dark hallway. "I should have left them living...but I'd never seen a blue rose before, and I have oft been told I live too much by impulse. By mother, usually, and Sister Athena."

"Hmm, and had thy palms crossed by the good sister's switch, I'll wager."

"Betimes," she said, and laughed. "I doubt not she'll dance a jig once they've cassocked and celled me proper."

Lord Hades paused at a wooden door in the hall, resting his hand upon its latch, and looked down at her. She fidgeted under that searching gaze.

"A nunnery, for thee?" He asked. "I am surprised. When didst thee decide to take the cloth?"

She twisted the hem of her cloak in nervous fingers.

"Ah...Mother says tis honorable for a girl to serve God." She smiled, bravely, though it felt false upon her face. "My future has been long since… _ordained_."

After a second of disbelief, he laughed, despite himself, and Kore's smile grew smug.

"Thou'rt clever," he murmured. 

"And brave," she reminded him. "Didst say that I was brave, before."

"Bravery oft conceals foolhardiness, lady," he said. 

"Am I a lady, now?" She tilted her head thoughtfully, but could not conceal her glee. "I do like it better than 'child'."

He chuckled, and opened the door before them. "Clean water and soft cloths for thy refreshment, sweet lady," he said, and bowed her into the room. "I shall leave the lamp with thee, and prepare us a bite of food. Follow the hallway to thy left, and down the stairs, and shalt find me again."

And then, as promised, he left her.

Kore looked at herself in the silvered mirror hanging above the washbasin. Her image wavered with lamplight, and her eyes were very dark.

She washed carefully - the water was fresh, if cold, and there were cloths aplenty and even a hard cake of soap, finely milled and scented with citrus. She took off her dress, and her kirtle and linen chemise, and all her underthings, and shook them out well, brushing off any smudges of dirt by hand, and grimacing over its condition after her climb. Eros would _rave_ at her…

There was an ivory comb on a shelf; she brushed her hair out with it, and after a moment’s thought, braided it up off her neck and tucked her roses into it at the back, tying the braid with a long thread pulled from the chemise. 

Looking again in the mirror, she found herself acceptable, and taking up the lamp again, headed off to find Lord Hades.

Down the hall she went, and the long staircase with its well-polished oaken banister; went slowly, taking her chance to see the inside of a lord’s home, looking well at his tapestries and artifacts.

There were not as many as she would have expected. Perhaps the Lord Hades was less wealthy than he seemed, or did not favor much decoration; there were forest scenes, and a few portraits of no one she recognized, but the colors were dark, muted. 

At the landing between second and first floors, in an alcove, stood a marble statue of a woman.

Kore stood before it, transfixed. Its artistry was magnificent. The woman’s wide cheekbones, her generous form, the lines of her Roman-styled gown, her delicate jewelry; all perfectly captured, seeming on the verge of life, as though at any moment she might breathe and move. She looked older, a matron, but still beautiful; and she held, inexplicably, a rough stone in her left hand.

Her eyes were terribly sad.

“My mother,” lord Hades said, and Kore started; she had not heard him approach. He stopped where he was, on the stair below the landing, and raised a hand in apology. “I wondered if thee had gotten lost.”

“Oh - no, forgive me,” Kore said, and ducked her head. “I was shamelessly gawking at your artworks, m’lord. I have not been in many people’s homes before, besides my own.”

He stepped up beside her, and looked at the statue. “I had this made,” he said, “many years gone by, when I found an artist who pleased me. Tis not her, of course, but he came very close.”

“She seems so mournful,” Kore said.

“Aye,” he mused. “That part is right.”

There was so much in his voice at that moment; more than love, more than grief. She felt small hearing it, a child again, with no understanding of things greater than herself.

But she was Kore, a lady now, and she was not afraid. Her heart ached for his own, for his pain.

She took his hand.

He looked down at her, startled; looked down at their hands entwined, and for a moment there was nothing else in the world outside them, in this little dark space, with their hands together.

“Thou art a surprise, indeed,” he murmured, and met her eyes again. “Perhaps I dreamt thee up.” His broad thumb stroked the side of her hand where it rested against his, back and forth, so warm and gentle; her heart leapt at the caress. There was danger here, and it felt...sweet; like honeyed wine; like the deep draughts of air one pulled in while running fast through a field, in summer, feeling ones youth and strength and freedom, unable to be caught. She leaned towards him, in the dark, holding his gaze.

And then, as if to prove her reality, her stomach growled. The mood broke with his snort of laughter, and she hid her face in her freed hands, laughing and embarrassed.

“Come,” he said, and took her hand again, leading her down the stairs. “Tis not rich fare, but I have bread and cheese and honey, and cider; mayst eat thy fill, and then sleep untroubled.”

***

The food was good, as promised; rich chewy bread and cheese with a savor of herbs, and crisp perry cider that warmed her from the inside. She set to ravenously, and lord Hades watched her eating with a smile. 

“Didst not eat at thy fair?” He asked, when she paused for breath.

“Oh no, a lady does not gorge herself in public,” she said tartly, and smeared honey on another piece of cheese. “I was sternly instructed by mother not to shame her while I was away.” Cheese and honey disappeared into her mouth in one large bite, and she made a sound of merry pleasure. 

“It surprises me not that a maiden’s manners chafe thee,” he said, and smiled. “In truth, though, it pleases me that thou’rt less...formal. It refreshes.”

“Oh, I am my mother’s cross to bear,” she said, and sighed. “Doubtless tis what put thoughts of the nunnery into her head. I was her little darling until I grew tall enough to climb trees and run faster than Nanny could catch me. Could she have pressed me in a book like a flower, I would be flattened for certain.” 

“A shame,” he murmured, and she glanced up sharply, but his face was all studied innocence.

“It _also_ surprises me that Dame Demeter, so stern and careful of thee, allowed thee to attend the fair at all.” He looked at her, and she glanced aside, fidgeting and unable to hide her growing smile. “Didst sneak away from thy nanny?”

“I did not!” she exclaimed, but her blush told the truth. “Ah… she let me visit Leto’s daughter, Artemis, for a fortnight. Leto is a lovely proper matron and they knew each other when I was a child... “

“Indeed.” Hades sat back in his chair, looking at her with a delighted grin. “And doth she know how the lady Artemis is renowned for wildness unparallelled? She hast won several hunting competitions, I have been told - and not a lady’s hawking for rabbits, but deer, and with her own bow.”

“Perhaps...not so much,” Kore said. “She _does_ know of Artemis’ vow of chastity, though, and that she _certainly_ approves of. Mother speaks of men as though they all were ravening wolves, forever hunting tender maidens to devour.” She pulled a face, baring her teeth in a silent growl and making curled claws of her hands. “Bewaaaaaare! Wander not the forest! Climb not the haunted tower - “

Belatedly, she cut off the flow of her heedless speech. The Lord crooked an eyebrow at her, silent, and she cringed. “God’s _foot_ , my endless prattle,” she muttered.

“Prithee, sweet lady,” he said in a soft, cozening voice. “Tell more of this haunted tower.”


	5. The Night (2)

Kore lay her head upon the table, next to her empty plate, as though awaiting the headsman's mercy. She sighed her embarrassment against the wood.

Lord Hades waited in silence, arms folded, smiling slightly.

"Betimes we tell each other ghostly tales," she said without looking up. "My friends and I. Tis an amusement only...I put no weight in such things. Wandering spirits and ravening monsters, all child's nonsense. But fun to make each other squeal in pretend horror.

"Before the fair...Eros told us such a story; that within the deeps of the forest lay a tower, haunted by the spirit of a knight, who captured young maidens who strayed too close and...well, I shan't repeat the rest." She shut tight her eyes, mortified. "And I said...I vowed...that did such a place exist, I would climb the tower and vanquish the ghost within."

Silence.

"Twas a simple story game," she sighed. "We meant no harm."

"But thou hast kept only half thy word," Lord Hades said.

Kore blinked up at him, then sat back up straight. "I...what?"

"Hast climbed my tower, yet I remain un-vanquished."

Kore made a rude noise, and he began to laugh.

"You, my lord, are no ghost, but a _scoundrel_ ," she chided. 

"Well, I sorrow to disappoint thee." He began gathering plates and cups. She was not so ill-mannered as to remark upon his lack of servants in such a large house, but jumped to her feet and laid into the task with a will. Together they carried all into the dark and silent kitchen, and set them aside for later washing up.

"Now," he said briskly. "Art fed and cleansed, and dawn not far off. I shall show thee to thy chamber; sleep soundly, and when thee awakens, shalt return thee safely to Leto's household." He lifted the lamp and turned toward the stair.

Kore caught at his sleeve. He stopped, looking down at her, his face shadowed and inscrutable.

"...I wish not to sleep," she said in a small voice.

After a moment, he touched her face with his free hand, palm warm against her cheek.

"Thou'rt no babe, but a lady, as thou insisted," he murmured. "Thy mind and body both need sleep; must not force thyself awake, as a child would."

"I wish not to sleep _alone_."

Daring, and wondering at herself, she placed her hand over his, and pressed her cheek into his gentle touch. He fell absolutely still; even the lamp-flame did not move.

"Kore," he said, and she heard a deepening in his voice, a subtle roughness. It made her tremble. "Thou knows not what - "

"I do know," she said, stopping him mid-sentence. "I know that come next spring I shalll be prisoned behind convent walls. I shall be no bride, no sweetheart, no lover...ever in life. And...I do not wish it so."

Turning her face against his touch, she pressed a kiss into the hollow of his palm, and heard the muted groan of his response. 

Deliberately, carefully, he set down the lamp.

The tension between them, there in the silent hall, was like nothing she had ever felt; she hummed with it like a plucked lute string. 

He pulled her close, gently, and bent to rest his forehead against hers. 

"I would not dishonor thee," he said. His hands, so broad and strong, fell to her shoulders. "I can never wed thee. Though...I think I might wish otherwise, had we but more time, and freedom, to come to know one another. Thou'rt clever, and brave, and so fair. But I am constrained by more than my own will... Sweetling, please, go to thy chamber."

Rising up upon her toes, full of fear and desire mingled, and before he could stop her, Kore pressed her trembling lips to his. 

She felt his resolve crumbling under her...power? Aye - strange, but she was powerful in this, and reveled in it. She took hold of his linen shirt and pulled them close against each other, and opened her mouth to him.

His control shattered. She found herself crushed in passionate embrace, twined her arms around his neck, made little pleasure sounds that seemed to pour forth of their own volition. 

When they broke apart, it was only for air.

"Little succubus, what hast thou done to me," he growled against her ear; delighted, she curled her fingers into his hair and sought his mouth again. Heated kisses, devouring; his embrace lifted her feet from the floor and she clung to him, biting his lip, then brushing her tongue over the spot to soothe the sting of her teeth. Growing within her was a great flame of desire, blazing beyond control.

Cradling her with one arm, he began to walk, taking her from the kitchen; she felt his other hand exploring the laces of her gown, finding the knot Eros had tied for her only that afternoon. They kissed, and gasped, and murmured to each other, and all the while Hades was moving easily through the dark. 

They passed through the door and into a sitting-room limned with moonlight streaming through its glassed window. Everything gleamed silver, dazzling the eye; the floor, the walls, lord Hades' white-blond hair; she could not imagine how her darker skin and curls must look to him. But his eyes on her were dazed and hungry, and his hands - his hands - 

She squeaked in surprise as he settled down onto a wide, well-padded couch, cradling her sideways in his lap, and began to pull the ribbon lacing from her gown. His left hand freed the thread from her hair and began unweaving her thick braid, smoothing and spreading out the silken locks, roses falling away unheeded. He watched her carefully as he did this, so intent it made her flush.

"May'st change thy mind," he told her softly. "I will not force thee."

His gentleness - and gentility - were sweet but also infuriating. Her blood raced through her, pounding in her ears and between her thighs, and surely he must feel the same maddening need. Rising up abruptly, she tugged at her skirts, sliding the ruffling fabric up above her knees, and slipped a leg across his lap. Now she sat facing him, astride, enjoying the astonishment on his face.

"You need not force me, lord," she crooned breathlessly, leaning in to shelter them both in the shadowed curtain of her unbound hair. "Nor fear breaking me. I _crave_ thee... I _need_ thee."

She felt the heat of his body against hers. The swell of his chest as he breathed, his shudder of response to her pleas. He crushed her to him again for a blistering kiss; his broad hands slipped down the silk-clad length of her back, curved over her soft bottom, and pulled her forward as his hips pushed up. Delirious excitement swept through her when she felt the steely length of him beneath her - the secret, forbidden anatomy of men, of which she knew only by gossip, rumor, and one afternoon reading a _most_ scandalous book Eros had bought in the city.

Was it wrong, she thought dizzily, to thank God the book had been illustrated?

"Lift thy arms," he commanded, and she obeyed without hesitation. He seized the skirts of her loosened gown, and its patterned underskirt, and deftly drew them up over her head, and away. Leaving her in only a thin linen chemise that barely reached her upper thighs. Kore felt the cool air touch her body, and drew in a deep breath.

Hades looked at her. Taking in the whole of her, from tousled hair to wide and darkened eyes, to the generous swell of her breasts and the way the moon's glow backlit her body through the chemise; the light gooseflesh risen along her arms.

"Art thou chilled, sweetling?" He asked, his voice resonant with lustful promise. "I shall warm thee."

"Wait - " Impatient, demanding, she tangled her fingers in the lacing of his fine shirt, and tugged. "Off," she insisted. "I would see you."

"Spoiled lass," he murmured with a smirk, but obediently pulled the shirt over his head and cast it aside, to wherever her dress had gone.

"Oh…"

Kore stared at the broad and well-muscled body beneath her. Moonlight turned the light dusting of pale hairs upon him silver; he looked an elfin creature or an ancient, pagan god.

She put her hands upon him, on the taut muscles just above the waist of his trousers, and they both gasped at the contact. He leaned back, closing his eyes, and pulled in shaking breaths as her delicate, cool hands slid over his skin. Up to trace his collarbones and feel the pulse leaping at his throat; down, following the line of fur, grazing his flesh so gently with her fingernails. The contact was maddening. He clenched his jaw, struggling for control of the base and raw instincts that came upon him.

Her fingers dipped beneath his trousers, and his eyes flew open. 

"God give me strength," he muttered, and put his hands over hers. "Kore - "

"I want to see," she told him. Nimbly she undid the fastening at his waist. "I would see _all_ of you."

They moved together, lifting and twisting and pulling; and then he was bared beneath her, nothing left between them but her shift. She sat back, her hands braced on his upper thighs, and beheld him, his proud cock thick and curving upward towards his belly; she thought of its purpose, of the sheathing inside her that was to come, and moaned, shaking and overwhelmed.

Hades slid one hand along her tender flesh, letting the tips of his fingers graze her inner thigh before moving down to wrap around his length. With the other, he reached up and took hold of her hair, gentle but firm, and tilted her face up to his.

"Thou hast done this, sweetling," he growled. "I could not deny thee."

Then he groaned, a long shaky sound, as her hand joined his around his sex; their fingers entwined, her palm achingly soft against his swollen flesh.

"Show me, my lord," she said, breathless, meeting his eyes boldly. "Teach me."

He pulled her into a kiss, and slowly led her hand along his flesh in a slow stroking rhythm, up...and down...and back again. She felt him throbbing against her palm, hot as a brand, and the sticky wetness beginning to well from the tip of him and run down her fingers. Shifting restlessly in his lap, she could feel her own flesh growing slick and plump as she touched him, so intimate, forbidden…

Their kiss broke and they gasped in sweet breaths. Gradually he slipped his hand free of hers, and she continued her caress unguided, feeling every inch of him.

"Kore," he hissed. "Thy touch is so sweet…"

For a few heartbeats this continued; their heads bent together, watching her hand move upon him. His breathing grew ragged. Then he growled a thick-voiced curse and took her wrists, abruptly, capturing them together in one broad hand and pulling them up above her head.

"My lord!" She cried, surprised (and disappointed).

"Another moment, sweetling, and I'd have spilled myself early." 

His free hand found the hem of her chemise, and pulled up, stripping it from her in one motion. 

She cried out wordlessly; would have instinctively covered herself, but he held her wrists still in an unyielding grip, the scrap of linen draped over their joined hands. He pulled her arms back and up further, arching her back, and _looked_ at her.

"Thou wouldst shame Aphrodite herself," he said slowly. "I must touch thee now."

"Yes!" She pleaded. "Touch me, my lord, before I die of this fire!"

His left hand held her captive; the other brushed a fingertip against her kiss-swollen mouth...down the line of her throat...down, down, over the soft globe of one breast, finding the crinkled, taut peak of her nipple and circling it clockwise, once, twice. She twisted in his grip, keening at this sweet torment. At last he palmed her breast, lifting its weight, and taking her nipple between his fingers, gently squeezed and rolled it.

He pulled her closer, leaning down, and took the other in his mouth.

"Oh...GOD!" She cried. This was pleasure undreamt of; the pressure of his touch, the heat and pull of his mouth. She was delirious with it. 

He released her hands, and they flew to his head, her fingers curling into his hair; and he reached down, between their bodies, between her thighs, and slid two fingers through her dew-beaded curls and along the cleft of her sex.

Later, thinking back to this moment, Kore would wonder if even a stroke of lightning could feel so intense. 

Every fiber of her body tensed; pure silver light filled her mind, overwhelming. She _bucked_ into his touch, rocking shamelessly in his lap. His fingers sought and found the little knot of flesh that concealed within it a woman's pleasure, and he deftly caressed it, sliding his other arm around her waist to support her trembling form. 

Looking up, he watched her face intently as he stroked her. Round in circles he swept his fingertips, and back and forth along the little peak; looking to see what touching brought her pleasure most keenly. 

She clung to him, breathless and wordless, battered by the tempest of sensation. A pressure grew within her belly that she had no name for; a cresting wave, a silken rope pulling taut; the moments before a wild storm breaks, washing the world with rain.

"My lord, what - what is happening to me - " she gasped out.

He chuckled, and his hand moved faster upon her flesh, more insistent. "Thy pleasure is upon thee," he murmured, indulgent. "Let it break open, sweetling. Let it come."

"Hades!" She cried, and then could speak no more.

It was indeed like a breaking within her; a crest, a crescendo; a wrenching ripple of ecstasy that came again, and again, and again, as dazed and overwhelmed she wondered if it would ever stop, or if she wanted it to. She let out muffled cries against his shoulder and he cradled her close, kissing her hair, his fingers' movement slowing to a sweet, gentle stroke.

The world outside has vanished, her rambling and scattered thoughts told her. Now in all of creation there is only us two.

"Oh, well done," Hades whispered against her hair. "Well done, beauty, very well…"

Sense returned, slowly. Looking up at him, Kore knew her face was flushed and wild, but could not bring herself to care. She was suffused with glowing warmth. 

"Ah...perhaps you are a spirit after all," she breathed. "Surely that was magic."

He laughed a little, and smoothed the hair from her damp forehead. "No magic. Tis how our bodies work in love, is all."

She remembered, suddenly, glancing down between them, and the sight of his cock still hard as iron sent a shivering throb through her.

Could… _that_ happen again? Would it feel the same for him?

Pulling herself up on her knees, she pressed him back and leaned forward until her belly touched him. He reached up and took her hips in his hands.

"Kore…" he whispered, looking up at her. Her face was hectic with nervous excitement. "One last time...thy need is eased now; we can stop this…"

"We could," she agreed.

Then she slid down, before he could speak again; felt the heat and pressure of the head of him, hard against her sex; she bit her lip, and _pushed_. For a brief second it seemed impossible, he was too large - she felt a burst of sudden fear - and then there was a shift, and a stretching ache deep within her. She felt herself open to him, and him sheathing into her, his entrance slicked by her arousal; there was a brief twinge of pain, a flash of heat, and it was done.

"Ahh, Kore," he moaned, lost. "Hast conquered me - "

"I - oh, I shall _burst_ \- there is so _much_ of you - "

His arms encased her in warmth; he pulled her up an inch, two inches. Before she could protest the loss, he drew her back down, and thrust up into her as well; a stroke so deep and filling that she yelped.

"Did I hurt thee," he asked lowly, halting their movements. She shook her head wildly, grinding into his body, seeking to fill herself again; obliging, he began again, rocking them together in a quickening rhythm. She moved with him; it seemed her body already knew this dance. There was no need or even room to think. There was only the rocking, the _sliding_ , skin slippery hot against skin. The deep resonance of his groans and her birdlike cries in counterpoint.

_That_ could, she found to her delight, happed again.

The tension grew within her as Hades' thrusts began to lose their perfect driving rhythm, his breath hissing through gritted teeth. "Oh - don't stop - " she gasped, "It's happening again - oh, I'm going to - "

He filled her mouth with a wrenching kiss, cutting off her begging speech; and she spilled over, fierce ripples of bliss riding through her; and felt his body tighten below and inside her, hands clutching her tight, a sudden heat filling the hollow of her belly from within. 

She could not support herself anymore; they collapsed together, both of them shaking and shaken, breathless, wrecked with pleasure.

"Kore," he murmured. 

She felt him stroke her hair, so gently, where it lay over her back.

After a time, when their breathing slowed and the world no longer spun around them, he pulled her from his lap; exhaustion hung over them, but he managed to gather their scattered clothes. Then, chivalrous, he lifted and carried her half-asleep up the long stair.

The last thing she knew that night was being laid gently into a feather bed; and the warmth of him against her back, one arm slung about her waist, and a soft blanket over them both.

She fell into a deep, restful, and dreamless sleep, held there secure in the arms of her lover.

It would be long before she slept so well again.


	6. The Morning

Half a hundred golden spears pierced the rising sun.

Lord Hades pulled his horse to a gentle halt and shaded his eyes with a gloved hand, squinting. His brother's palace had been designed to catch and overwhelm the eye; in the morning sun it blazed like a conflagration, gold-topped towers reflecting the light until it seemed the whole sky was afire.

Dazzling and deceptive, like its master.

It had taken him a week's leisurely travel to return here from the forested lowlands where his own lonely estate stood. God knew he had been loath to leave it this time. As he waited for his eyes to adjust to the fiercely blazing turrets, his memory fell back to the ending of his visit. To the unexpected sweetness that had climbed, literally, into his life for a night.

And left again in the morn. He had taken her back to her friend's estate, leaving her at the edge of the forest so none would suspect she had been with him, unchaperoned.

Thou art a man grown, he told himself, and this no foolish bard's tale of love. 

But still his heart lay cold within him.

Sighing, he touched his horse's shoulder, and it obediently walked forward. 

Formal gardens around him shimmered with dew, the sun too new-risen to have burned it away. This was the Kingsroad, that ran in a vast circle around the capital, beginning and ending at the palace; further out it was just a road, but this close to its source it was stone-paved and bracketed with neatly trimmed hedges. Beyond those, meticulously placed and tended flowerbeds, ornamental trees, graceful benches, pergolas, sculptures, sculpted fountains...all exquisite; all unnatural in their perfection. All to say without words that _this was made by human hands at great expense; a King lives here, and bends his surroundings to his whim._

It made Hades tired.

They spotted him before long. Watchmen in gleaming uniforms opened the gilded gates; a shouted order brought servants rushing into the broad circle drive, ready to take his horse, carry his baggage, to take his boots away and give him cushioned velvet slippers, to offer him cool wine. The horse he gave into their care, and his dogs that trailed at heel, but he waved away the rest.

"Where is the King?" he asked bluntly.

"Welcome home, Lord Hades," a smooth-voiced page answered. "His Highness is still abed. The morning meal shall be served in the Dawn Hall within the hour."

Hades dismissed the man with a nod. He and the others retreated to a proscribed distance and bowed with clockwork simultaneity, like a dance; pretty, and practiced, and false.

Hades sighed and made for the palace doors.

Down marble hallways. Up velvet staircases. Past whispering courtiers and silent servants. Heavy scents of cologne and stale smoke and places where many people gathered, day in and day out. Paintings of royal ancestors. Suits of gilded armor. Lush carpets, glassed windows. Doors that locked with little golden keys. 

His first stop was the chapel, and the person he knew he would find there.

She was before the altar, kneeling in prayer. He heard the whisper of her voice and the rattle of her long, jeweled rosary. A rainbow of morning light came through a stained-glass window and shimmered over the cloth-of-gold veil she wore, hiding her hair...for modesty's sake.

"My Queen," he said.

Her prayers fell silent. After a moment, she lifted one slender hand to him, and he stepped forward to help her rise.

"Praise God you have returned to us, Aidoneus." She turned to him, with a lovely smile that did not touch her eyes, and held his hand between hers. "These days at Court have been poorer for your absence. I trust your trip was pleasant.”

“It was. Forgive me for interrupting thy prayers. I was told his Highness is abed still.”

“Yes.” Her smile never faltered, but her eyes blazed cold. “His Highness much prefers the _physical_ comforts of his chamber to the spiritual comforts of the chapel.”

Hades sighed. Nothing had changed in his absence; nothing ever changed.

“You should stay, and seek God’s comfort with me,” she said. Her hands around his were very warm. “For those matters which mortals, even Kings and Queens, cannot understand.”

“Hera,” he said. Not unkindly. And took his hands from hers. “God is a comfort, but He will not run thy earthly Kingdom.”

That thinned her smile, and she tilted her head up imperiously. “Very well, my lord,” she said, words tinged with frost. “A blessed day to you.”

“And to thee,” he said. And bowed, deeply. 

At the chapel door he glanced back; she had returned to her knees, her back to him, her whispered prayers resumed. A golden statue of piety.

He took his leave without another word.

Then more stairs, taKing them briskly, to warm himself after the day’s first unpleasant encounter. The King’s chambers were on the top floor - naturally - and a drowsy page sat on a velvet stool outside his engraved oaken doors. The lad sat up as Hades approached, and went to ring the bell announcing a visitor - but stopped, confused, at the lord’s raised hand.

“No need for that,” he told the boy. “I’m sure he’s awake.”

He slipped silently in through the doors, closing them behind him.

This first room was a sitting-room, richly appointed, with its own fireplace; from the bedchamber beyond Hades could hear muffled voices. One masculine. One feminine, and light with amusement. He grimaced and leaned back against the door, arms folded; waiting.

Minutes passed.

He was not surprised at all when, at last, there was a sharp crack of hand against bare flesh, and a squeal; nor when the bedchamber room burst open, emitting a buxom young woman clad only in an embroidered sheet and a single stocking, her hair loose and wild, a red handprint clearly visible on her bared, milk-pale buttock. 

“My King, be merciful!” she cried out in a laughing, mock-terrified voice. “I am but a tender maiden!”

She had not seen Hades yet.

“Aye, bring me thy tender ‘but’!” boomed from the doorway, and the King emerged from it. 

Tall, imposing; regal; ever so slightly pot-bellied; and mother-naked.

Reaching out, he grabbed the woman by her arms and lifted her; she squealed in delight as he hoisted her over one shoulder, one hand creeping up the back of her naked thigh. “Shan’t escape thy King so easily!” he laughed, and slapped her bottom again. “Now, where - “

His eyes met Hades’ across the dim room. There was a moment of echoing silence.

“My King?” the woman asked.

Unceremoniously, he dropped her to the floor in a puddle of bedsheet. She squawked with surprise.

“Brother!” Zeus said.

“My King,” Hades said.

The woman looked up, gasped, and pulled the sheets over herself entirely.

***

The nameless woman, brusquely dismissed, hurried back into Zeus’ bedchamber; doubtless it held her clothing, and some secret passage where she could slink away. The King pulled a velvet robe over his nakedness and rang a bell-pull, and soon his servants arrived to shave and dress him for the day. Hades stood by, with the patience of an oak tree. An unhappy one.

“In truth, brother, I was preparing to order the Kingsguard out after you,” the King said. “I shall never understand what you see in that forest hovel. Leave the past in the past!”

“One of us must keep true to it,” Hades said. “Thou and Poseidon have present and future well-in-hand. Leave me the past. In truth it better suits me than thy court.”

The King cast one foul-tempered glance his way, over the head of the page who was shaving his throat with a glistening razor. “You ARE part of my court - “ he growled. “And you will obey.”

Hades bowed his head, and said nothing.

It took the better part of half an hour to lace and strap the King into his exquisite morning clothes. Purple stockings fitted tightly to show his calves at best advantage, billowing sleeves slashed to show the contrasting color of his undergarment, a velvet vest, fine leather shoes. Rings. A pendant bearing his royal seal. Must weigh twenty pounds, Hades considered.

“Done. DONE! Away, damn the lot of you!” Zeus roared, and flapped his hands, sending his attendants scurrying out of the way. “Walk your brother to court, _Aidoneus_. A visitor arrived two nights ago. For you.”

They paraded down the hallway - the King, with Hades a few respectful steps behind, then the King’s main attendant, with a multitude of lesser servants trailing behind. 

They paused before the King’s entrance to his throne room - a plain door that opened into a shadowed space behind the throne, where he could look out at court in secret. 

“Who would visit me?” Hades asked his brother. Suspiciously. 

Zeus only grinned, and swept through the door, leaving them all to follow, as was right and proper.

Hades looked to the attendant, a slender young man dressed all in yellow, who shrugged and went through the door. All the servants followed.

Couldst leave now, Hades told himself. No-one in the halls to stop thee. Take thy horse and flee back to thy home.

He sighed and went into the throne room, instead.

He found Zeus already seated on his mountainous throne, beaming down at his full court as they made their obeisance to him. Lords and ladies, knights and dames, all attended by servants, were bowing and murmuring. The air was close and hot and filled with a multitude of smells. 

Hera sat to the side, with a group of her handmaidens, embroidering, and ignoring the King completely.

“God’s blessing and good morn!” the King exclaimed. He seemed in good humor, despite his wife not appearing beside him. “Rejoice, for Our brother has returned from pilgrimage in the wilderness! Forgive his appearance; gone from court so long, perhaps he has forgotten his nice manners.” 

Titters from the crowd. Not all, though. They knew Lord Hades’ job at this court, and some, at least, respected that...or feared it.

The King gestured a servant to come near, and whispered to him; the man glanced at Hades, bowed deeply to the King, and hurried away.

“What is this?” Hades asked the King. “I like not surprises, my King, as thou well know.”

“You will like what I tell you to like,” the King said brusquely. 

“I like THAT even less,” he answered, quietly, anger beginning to show. “We have been through much together, brother. I have served thee willingly and well for all these many years - “

“Aye, and shall continue,” the King growled. He scowled vicioiusly at his brother, but only for a moment; soon he remembered the watching court, and was all smiles again, patting Hades’ shoulder with a heavy hand. “You will know soon enough! Think of it as a reward for those many years of _loyal service_!” His voice rose. “Now someone bring me wine! Let there be music! Court is intolerably boring today!”

And so there was wine. And music.

“Stay by my side, brother,” the king said. And so he stayed. For a moment he caught Hera’s glance; she looked...sorrowful. But the crowd’s bustle, jockeying for positions close to the throne, soon hid her again.

An hour passed.

The servant returned, and nodded to Zeus; and the King stood, setting aside his gilded wine-cup.

“My people!” he boomed, and conversation in the room ended. There was a hungry quiet.

“Well you all know how my brother has served this land,” he said. “My judge of hearts! Protector from betrayal! Mine own right hand!

“He has served long, and he has served alone; and We are truly pleased this day to end his loneliness at last!”

Hades felt the doom about to fall upon him, and cursed himself for a fool, to have ever come back to court. Surely this place would destroy him.

At the King’s gesture, the far doors opened - wide double doors carved and gilded with hunting scenes - and between them stepped a tall, slender form, covered in a long dusky veil.

“Lord Hades,” the King gloated. “Your betrothed has come!”

Two ladies-in-waiting, in foreign dress, came up on either side of the veiled figure, and pulled the cloth away with much grace. The woman beneath it was heart-stopping in her beauty. Gifted with height, slender as a willow, her skin honeyed, almond-shaped eyes so dark they were almost black. Her gown, stunning in its unfashionable simplicity, was fitted tightly to her, and as red as blood. Her gloves were red, and her little shoes peeking out from under the skirts, and the ribbon around her delicate throat. 

And her hair, in a silken straight cascade nearly to the floor, was red...red...red.

One of the handmaidens, a pale girl in silver and seafoam green, took two steps in front of her mistress, and gave a swaying, dance-like curtesy. She was, Hades noted in a corner of his dazed mind, the girl from the King's chamber that morning.

“The lady Minthe,” she announced sweetly...and smiled.


	7. The Woman

It is widely considered impolite to strike one’s King.

Lord Hades had spent his politesse on that morn’s unexpected meeting. Now his brother, his King, lay sprawled across the floor of a private meeting room, staring up at Hades with astonished, rage-filled eyes.

“I could have you HUNG!” he roared. Spittle flew from his mouth with the words. “I could have you GIBBETED ALIVE and let your bride watch as the crows eat you - I AM YOUR KING!”

“Then be a King, and not a child at play.” Hades stepped forward and took Zeus’ flailing hand, hauling him back upright. “I am thy brother, not thy biddable toy. If thou mislike it, then indeed, have me hanged.”

Zeus wiped his face with the back of his hand and glared. “You could show _gratitude_ , you old ghoul,” he muttered. “Mouldering alone in that hovel. Married only to the past. What good were you doing anyone there? Now you’ve a bride, beautiful and docile and _wealthy_ \- “

“God in Heaven. Hast sold me like a horse at stud? _Idiot_.” Hades turned from his brother, dismissively, and clenched his hands into aching fists. “Do we need wealth so much? Our kingdom prospers, by God's grace. Or hast been emptying coffers in the night? Showering thy people's work-bought fortune on thy lovers - "

"By god, I will hang you myself, you traitor," the king snarled.

"Traitor? I have served from the day thou wast born - I spent my youth in war for thee - I am TIRED.“

“Oh, for ME! Every last task of your damned LIFE was for me? Would you have let him live, then, had I not been born? HIS was the fault. I did not choose my birth to _spite_ you. You know who bears THAT blame - “

Hades whipped around to loom over his brother, forbidding. “Speak her name and I shalt strike thee again,” he said, through rage-gritted teeth.

“You do not understand!”

“Then _explain_.” Crossing his arms, Hades stepped back from the king.

Zeus breathed in deeply a few times, blinking. Tamping down a rage that burned as brightly as his brother’s. “You think - “ he started, and shook his head. “All the war we spent our youth on. Winning and building this country. Freeing ourselves... “ He looked up at Hades, the words dragging out of him. Catching in his throat. “You think...we did that with no help?”

Hades’ eyes widened; he shifted, tilted his head. “Thou...dost not mean thy mercenaries,” he said. 

“No.” Zeus said. “I do not.”

“Brother…what hast thou done?”

“What I had to do.” The room was growing warm; a cabinet in the corner held wine and Zeus opened a bottle, drinking from it straight. “We needed allies, powerful ones. One night, a moonless night… we were losing, brother. When a - a person...came to me, and offered to win our war... how could I refuse? And the things she asked for in return were so far in the future.”

“Who was she?” Hades pulled the bottle from Zeus’ hands and set it aside. Sweat beaded on the sides of the bottle, leaking onto the counter, though the wine had not been chilled. “What was thy promise?”

“She said...she was a Queen…” Zeus murmured. Looking away from his brother’s intent gaze, wiping the sheen from his forehead with an embroidered cloth. “And she would need a royal husband...a _mortal_ husband...once a decade had passed.”

“Mortal.” Hades bent his head, closed his eyes. Feeling dizzy from the heat, or from his brother’s words. “ _Mortal_."

"You heard me," Zeus snapped, angry and...afraid? And almost gasping, pulling in great deep breaths.

"Hast thou gone mad?”

“Not mad, Aidoneus,” said a sweet voice from behind him.

He turned, and the turning felt… wrong. Slowed.

The air shimmered with heat, but the lady Minthe radiated a soothing, alluring cold; like a draught of water brought up dripping from a deep well on a summer afternoon. A mountain lake he could plunge into and be refreshed. Scent of exotic blossoms and resins. She had removed her long, crimson gloves, and her skin fairly glowed. 

She touched his wrist, lightly, and his skin there burned with frost. 

"Fret not," she told him, in a sweet, low voice that rang like bells in his head, echoing and echoing, confounding his thoughts. "Soon enow thou shalt be _my_ King, Aidoneus."

"Lady...I…" Clenching his jaw for control, for clarity, Hades managed two steps back into the furnace the room had become. He saw a candle on the wall begin to soften, to bend and melt in its bracket; a shake of his head, and it stood upright once more. But after a moment, his head began to ache terribly, and the wax to slump again.

"What is this," he whispered.

Her slim hand came into view, reaching up to palm his forehead - such a cooling, soothing bliss that he felt himself lean into the touch with a thankful groan.

"Come with me, my sworn," she murmured, "thou hast taken ill. We must put thee to bed; shalt relax, and be well."

Something in his heart rebelled...but it was small, and hidden, and voiceless; it could not fight past the roiling of his mind.

It sank back into darkness.

Hades allowed himself to be led from the room. They found Minthe's attendant at the door, the women exchanging sly smiles as they slipped past one another.

"My king," he heard the other woman coo, before the door shut behind them.

That was his last clear memory for many, many days.

He never saw the shadow watching from a darkened corner as Minthe guided him away. He did not see the shine of its eyes, narrowing, or hear its sudden intake of breath.

Minthe heard...but saw nothing when she turned.

Fortunately.


	8. The Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning, this chapter mentions (but does not include the use of) abortifacients.

Kore sat in a patch of sun, with a lapful of green silk, mending, and not thinking.

The lie - that she had gotten lost in the forest and spent the night in an abandoned dovecote - had come easily enough. Artemis and her mother had chided and cosseted her in turns; a gentle maid alone in the wood all night! How terror must have wracked her, how pathetic and helpless she must have been in the face of untrammeled Nature. 

At least they spoke to her. Eros glimpsed her tattered hems and fell into a wailing swoon. Leto hired a carriage to see him home, and there had been no contact since. She _dreaded_ what odious tasks he might put her to before granting forgiveness.

It was with both hope and fear, then, that Kore learned of an invitation from Aphrodite, Eros' mother.

For herself alone.

"Belike she wants some favor from Demeter, and hopes you might be her ally," Leto said. A slight woman, still lovely beneath her graying hair, she was rolling pastry dough out thin and fine on a floured cloth; a bowl of spiced, chopped apples sat nearby. "Go if you wish, but if you'd take my advice, promise her no promises. Ever wily to her own advantage, that one is. There. Let me spread the apples, child, then will you help me roll?"

Artemis, outside, peppering a target with arrows in the fading light, said only, "She wants to put dresses on you. She could put them on Eros, but he's th'wrong shape. Prepare to stand for hours and be primped on."

"But surely she could have invited you, too - "

Artemis cawed a laugh and made another bullseye. "Aphrodite loves me not. She tried making me her little dressmaker doll when I was seven summers, and I gave her such a kick... never again."

In a modest gown and shawl and her second-best shoes - those Hades' dogs hadn't chewed - and with a basket of sweets from Leto's kitchen, Kore went along to Aphrodite's home the next morning. The weather was fine and warm at midsummer, and she commanded her heart to enjoy the day.

But her heart, she had found, was a willful thing. Everything reminded it of her night with Lord Hades, even silly things - birdsong, cloud shapes, the faint smell of roses on the wind. She longed to dance along the path to town; she longed to throw herself into the grass and weep, and tear her hair. 

It would fade, she promised herself. Eventually. Perhaps in a month. 

Aphrodite's home in town was pristinely kept, a wealthy estate in miniature; her husband Hephastus was the King's own smith, and kept her well on his royal commission. 

He rarely came home. 

There were stories about this, which Persephone steadfastly ignored.

She passed through the gate, followed a path bordered with foxgloves, and found the door open. A serving girl - well dressed for her station, no surprise that - led her inside and vanished into another room.

" _Poppet!"_ came the cry as Aphrodite emerged, beaming, perfect. She folded Kore into a kind embrace, then pushed her back for a keen, judging look, from toes to top. "Oh, indeed," she announced. "You've grown lovely, as I thought you would. Come with me. We ladies must talk!"

She was led into a sitting room that fairly blazed with sophistication. Aphrodite indulged herself in the latest fashions from the Continent. Aphrodite had frequent deliveries from the Capitol, oft bearing the royal seal. At church each Sunday morn she sat prim and serene through sly side glances, rippling whispers, pointed sermons about worldliness and impropriety. Once, it was said, she had removed a fine ring from her finger, dropped it casually into the tithing plate, then pulled another from the pouch at her waist and put it on straight away, in the same spot as the first.

Demeter disapproved of Aphrodite, Kore knew, but something lay between them, some tie from the past keeping them tethered. 

“My thanks for your kind invitation, my lady,” Kore said. They were seated on a small tufted couch, beneath an open window, and the serving woman had brought glasses of rose sherbet, and long silver spoons to sip at it with. “Was it for Eros’ sake that you called me here? I...fear we had an argument, and have not spoken in some days.”

“Argument, aye,” Aphrodite echoed with a wry little smile. “Oh, he still sulks and stews in his room, but fear not, my son has never held a grudge *or* a suit beyond a moon. Shall have your bosom companion back again before harvest is done. 

“Certes but I do not understand his wrath with you.” Setting down her glass, Aphrodite took one of Kore’s hands in hers and held it consolingly. “Lost in the forest! I shudder to think what might have befallen you!”

“Oh… really, my lady, it was not so dangerous. I was quite afeared, I admit, but did find a safe enough place, and my path again when the sun rose, without any trouble. Twas my own fault, really, for getting separated, and then running off like a silly girl. Eros has every right to be wroth, surely he feared for me more than I did myself… not to mention Demeter’s wrath did I not reappear. But I have learned my lesson well, and caused enough commotion for my lifetime!” 

“Really,” Aphrodite said. Her smile stayed friendly, but something in her gaze had changed. Kore felt as though she were being weighed and measured, and it was not a comfortable feeling. 

“Is… something wrong?” she asked, fretful. “If you like, lady, I will go and make my apologies to Eros…”

“No, child...well. I suppose I should not call you ‘child’ any longer, should I?” Aphrodite tilted her head, radiant curls spilling over her shoulder, but her eyes were as sharp and clear as topaz. “Has Demeter thought of suitors for you?”

Kore dropped her gaze to her lap. “I believe she has… loftier aspirations for my future than advantageous marriage,” she murmured. “Sister Athena has visited much these last months.”

“Hmm...Sister Kore…” Aphrodite rolled the words around her mouth and frowned as though she had bitten a lemon. “That is unfortunate. And you so… _well favored_ , would have no trouble finding a wealthy spouse...or powerful. It seems a waste on Demeter’s part. Winding you into a habit will not bring her lands, or influence.”

“Mother has spoken much of the nunneries nearer court, where they know much of herb-lore and how best to help things grow… I believe she intends me to gain this knowledge, and pass it on to her.” 

“Speaking of growing things,” Aphrodite said, and her voice was cool. “When my son came back from the fair, all in a twitter over your...escapade...he shewed me these. From your cloak, he said. Perhaps you could tell me where you stumbled onto them?”

The lady extended her slim, beringed hand, and in her ivory palm lay a half-dozen blue rose petals.

A ringing filled Kore’s ears, as of far-off bells, and she felt herself grow cold. Felt the hot blood drain from her face. Aphrodite was watching her, staring through her, right into her secret heart.

“I - I… it was so dark, my lady and I was… so frightened…” Stuttering. 

“For,” Aphrodite murmured, “I have never seen such growing wild hereabouts. Or near the capitol. Or...anywhere. It’s a far-off land where the blue rose is found, and must be carefully cultivated to survive our milder climes. There are,” she continued, “only a very few devotees who grow them.”

“My lady,” Kore said, desperate, “I cannot explain it.”

“I can,” Aphrodite said, and smiled. Coyly. “For I have been there… where the blue roses grow upon his tower, hidden so well among the trees.”

Where had the serving-woman gone? Was there no escape? Kore looked up, but they were alone… and Aphrodite was taking her hand, her grip surprisingly strong.

“How was the Lord Hades, then...sweet _maiden_?” Aphrodite whispered into her ear.

There was nothing to be done.

She met Aphrodite’s eyes boldly, tossing her head a little, steeling herself. “He was,” she said evenly, “A kind and generous host.”

Aphrodite blinked at this, and then pealed bell-like laughter. “Well!” she said, admiring. “Had expected you would weep and beg my silence. You please me. Lord Hades is… aye, he is a friend. From long ago.”

“Was it the war?” Kore asked. “Mother… and the parents of my friends… and Lord Hades himself… you all have these connections, that I do not understand.”

Aphrodite shrugged. Some of the sparkle had left her eyes, but still she smiled lightly. “Ah, we are old, and have all met from time to time,” she said. “The world is so much smaller than it feels when you are young. We are foolish… and do foolish things...trying, betimes, to escape the plans our elders set for us.” She pressed her cool fingers against Kore's cheek, tilting the girl’s head higher. “Lord Hades would certainly be...a _prize_.”

Hot with understanding, Kore jerked her head back and fair leapt to her feet. “Madam,” she said frostily, “I am not such a schemer. I stumbled upon Lord Hades’ estate in the dark, and begged him for succor, and he was kind and entirely appropriate. Think you that I am some… some…” She searched for a scathing enough word.

“Hussy?” Aphrodite suggested. “Slattern? Whore?”

“Ahh!” Kore stamped one little foot, flushed with anger and shame. “How DARE you!”

“Oh, shush, girl, you’ll have the whole house down on us. Sit back down.” Aphrodite sighed. “Twas not an accusation, so untwist thy skirts. I have seen you grow up, I know well you’ve a virtuous heart… boring, but virtuous. Perhaps I went too far. Prithee, forgive my rash words.” She sounded like a child reciting an apology scripted by its mother, but her smile this time was real, and Persephone grudgingly, slowly took her seat again. Beaming, Aphrodite took her hands again. 

“Now,” she said. “Friend as I am with Lord Hades, I must tell you we have long lamented his isolation. It is in that honest friendship that I ask you to tell me _everything_. How did the lord seem when you spoke with him, how was his household? Were there servents? Did he eat, did he drink? I beg of you, Kore, set my mind at ease.”

And with a grudging sigh, Kore began to talk.

And talk. And talk.

With a start, some time later, she realized that the sun had gone down… and that Aphrodite was looking at her again with unsettling clarity. She thought back over the conversation… how _easy_ it was to talk to Aphrodite… how easy it was to talk about Lord Hades. 

She had, perhaps, talked too much about Lord Hades.

“My dear girl,” Aphrodite said. “He made quite an impression on you. Over a long and… lonely night.”

Gritting her teeth, Kore refused to meet the lady’s eyes, and after a while she laughed and got up. There was a glassed cabinet at the wall, which she went to and unlocked with a little silver key that hung from a chain around her neck.

She picked out a small glass vial and brought it back to the couch. The contents were a dull green, herbal color.

“Take this,” Aphrodite said quietly, and pressed it into Kore’s hands. “It is an old remedy for… well… a lady’s mistakes. It will bring on your moon cycle. Should you be late.”

Kore blinked up at Aphrodite, owlish, a little horrified at the implication. “My lady - “ she began, sharply, but Aphrodite pressed cool fingers to her mouth, silencing her.

“The world is bad,” she whispered, bluntly. “Doubly bad for women. One’s joy can be another’s trap…”

They looked at one another for a long moment, and Kore saw that the age which had not marked Aphrodite’s skin lay hidden in her eyes...age and old sorrow. 

“Well!” Aphrodite straightened and clapped her hands once, sharply, breaking the spell. “Thank you _so much_ for your visit, my dear, and for the pastries - tell Leto I will enjoy them - and I will tell Eros that you stopped by and were appropriately penitent.” Back to her beaming, perfect self, she led Kore back to the door and gave her a quick, light embrace, their bodies not touching. “My coachman will take you home….and Kore… be safe.”

The door shut, taking all that brightness and gaiety with it, leaving Kore standing between the foxgloves, full of feelings she could not name.


	9. The Harvest (1)

Kore lay abed that night, holding the little bottle on its cord above her face, letting it sway back and forth. Watching the shadowy fluid inside slosh. Starlight wavered off imperfections in the glass.

So many new thoughts to think, and all in less than a fortnight.

Her free hand lay at rest upon the familiar soft swell of her belly.

"Little fool," she muttered to herself. Mother had taught her, bluntly, of the act of procreation; the Church would teach her of sin and its wages, she had said, but she believed a girl should know the practical side as well, to best protect herself from the wiles of men, who rarely suffered the consequences their gentle targets did. Kore had been struck by this unfairness, and flared up in righteous indignation, but Mother had silenced her at once.

"Life is not fair." Stonefaced Demeter, looming over her daughter like an obelisk. "You must defend your virtue. Few will deign to help you keep it and fewer still will accept you once it is lost. Maidenheads are but prizes to men. Without one - and without a marriage contract - you are worse than useless, and even God will not want you. Better you should be safe in God's house before men's eyes turn to you."

She had not had her first blood yet when Demeter said those things; she still had a boy's shape, and scabbed knees from playing in the woods.

The little bottle she lowered until its glass bottom rested on her breastbone. She rubbed the pad of her thumb against its side, feeling its smooth coldness.

Her body felt just as it always had, before...before that night. Should it not be different? Would she know if she was quickened with child?

With his child.

She lay uneasy in her bed, tossing and turning, chasing sleep. Trying not to think of Lord Hades, and what his touch had done - what the mere thought of it still did, raising an urgent heat in her. She trained her mind on her Latin lessons, but the syllables danced away. 

Drink, fool child, she told herself. Be safe!

The bitterness she had heard in Aphrodite's voice, the flattened, ended look in her eyes, when she spoke of gifts and traps. Is that what worldliness took from you? Gain comfort and wealth, lose...what?

Kore did not want wealth. The poverty of a nun's life did not dismay her. Only the loss of freedom.

She stared at the bottle, and wondered if freedom was inside it.

Then she rose, padding silently over to the little window across from her bed.

She popped the cork from the bottle - its contents smelled astringent and herbal, nearly tickling a sneeze from her - and quickly poured its liquid out through the window, where it would fall like dew in the grass below.

Done.

She hid the empty bottle in her mattress, through a little tear she worked into the seam, and covered it well.

Sleep came easily and quickly.

***

Thus did the month of August begin.

Kore had no time to worry or regret her decisions; August was harvest-season, and everyone must do their part. Poor harvest could mean a community's doom. Without enough for the winter, they must needs petition the King for Royal aid, and while this would prevent utter starvation, the future cost would be heavy indeed.

So all the people worked, and worked hard; each ensuring the others did their share and did it smartly. The lax or lazy would have a hard time of it. There were bundles of switches hidden away, and rough cloth masks; any shirker could expect to find themselves surrounded by their anonymous neighbors and well drubbed for their sins.

But not many suffered this fate. The weather was good, and the work was not crushing hard, and workers were well fed for their trouble. Kore did not mind. She sewed sacks for grain, worked on the winnowing floor, tended the cook fire; she carried dripping jugs of cool water to the field hands with their sweeping scythes; watched the children too young yet to work, put ointment on small cuts and blisters; did, basically, any chore that would otherwise take up the time of a harvester. And gladly, for harvest-time meant above all that her mother was too busy to lecture, harangue, direct, or even notice her daughter. 

Those passing days were washed in gold; the fields, the sky, filled up with thick, sweet summer sun. Honey from the hive, cider gushing from the press, sparkling wheat-chaff borne on the wind. Harvest-labor was clean and good; the weariness after was honest bought and heralded wonderful sleep.

Kore began to wonder if this, too, was not a sort of freedom. To invest yourself in the land, wholly and unselfishly, and take back the (literal) fruits of that labor, a wholesome gyre of seasons, and praising God whose blessing lay in every hour of toil and every harvest-basket.

She took a harvest-basket with her, nearing evening late in the month, when the wheat had been cut down and the apples shaken, and the work of processing was well underway; she went alone through the fields, down to the stream that wended its way past her mother's land, with the thought of rich, sweet blackberries foremost in her mind. The thickets grew untamed just across the stream, and surely, surely not all of them had been stripped. A pair of strong leather gloves hung at her waist, to keep the thorned canes from ripping at her skin.

There was the music of the little stream, chuckling and burbling merrily, with birdsong accompaniment; but as she followed a westward bend of the water, Kore picked up another sound, a rippling rill of music that no bird had ever sung. She slowed, then crept closer, ducking her head for cover behind a thick stand of cattails, feeling unaccountably shy.

Beyond the cattails was a crab-apple tree, short but stout, and a man sat at his leisure beneath it, cooling his bootless feet in the stream. His clothes were finely made; his hair, golden as the day, fell in gleaming waves about his shoulders. 

He was idly strumming at some instrument, but as he was turned slightly away from her, Kore could not see it, or his face.

She heard clearly, though, his amused and lazy tenor; "Come now," he said, "no need to spy."

She closed her eyes for a moment; _little creeping fool!_

"Pray - pray forgive me, sir, I came down but to pick berries, and wished not to...disturb…"

As she spoke, she pushed forward past the cattails; as she spoke, the man stood to meet her.

Their eyes met - hers brown, his blue - and her voice died midword.

"Well," he said after a moment, and grinned at her. "The little minx from the fair! My luck _has_ turned good."

The instrument he held was a lyre, a gleaming wooden frame with golden inlay and gleaming strings; must be worth a fortune, yet the knight dropped it easily upon the soft grass, and approached her, moving to her right a bit, as if sidling up to a skittish horse. “Do you remember me, sweet? We had such little time together, and parted so… abruptly.”

Oh, she remembered. His hand like iron on her arm, and his revolting kiss, and how she had freed herself. She edged back towards the water, holding her basket up like a shield. “Oh… kind sir, you must be mistaken,” she lied hopefully. “I am but a village girl who never goes to fairs.”

“Oh, no,” he crooned. “May have shed your fine dress, but I’ll not forget your face...or your knee. Left me wounded, you did, and quite unable to enjoy the rest of the fair... I am owed some recompense for that, I believe.” He moved towards her, quicker than she had expected from a man his size; she found herself at the edge of the water, and stepped down into the stream without a thought, the icy water reaching her ankles. The brambles were just behind her, only feet away, and she knew her way through that thicket as only one born to this land could, one who had roamed its hills and secret places their full childhood. 

“Hold still,” Apollo growled. His charm was washing away as he grew closer. “All I want’s a tumble; surely you’ve had your share. Hold still, and I’ll be kind.”

He plunged into the stream after her, and hissed at the feel of stones under his bare feet. Kore did not waste her labored breath on his taunts; scrambling backwards as fast as she may, she felt the thick grasses of the bank behind her, and turned to pull herself up. 

As her fingers brushed a single blackberry leaf, reaching for the thicker stalk of the plant, straining, praying... his caught firmly in her hair, and pulled viciously tight. 

She screeched like an angry cat, and fought as well; clawing his forearms, kicking backwards at his shins; but he hauled her back into his arms as though she were a fractious child, and laughed brutally at her squirming. “Mine,” he gloated. “Now you’ll learn some manners, you wild little - CHRIST!”

From behind the knight had come a great, echoing splash, like a stone dropped into a pool. Crystalline drops of water filled the air around them, casting rainbows, and where they touched her skin they were cold, ice-cold. The water gushed over Apollo’s shoulders, rained down from his hair, spattered over her skirts and the blackberry leaves beyond them.

“VILE PERVERT!” shrieked a familiar voice behind them.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I GOT MY MOJO BACK
> 
> But seriously, forgive delay, shit's been weird yo. I knew where this story started and I knew where it would end, but now I've got all the middle stuff worked out. Expect...hmm, three or four more chapters. I'll try to keep updates more frequent. As always, thanks for reading, kudos and comments feed my heart.


	10. The Harvest (2)

***

Next to her ear, Apollo cursed and spluttered. His arms loosened, and Kore slipped from his grasp with a final kick, throwing herself up the bank and crawling beneath the brambles fast as a hare. Panting, shaking, she turned around to look.

Apollo was stumbling over the rocks, clawing wet locks of hair from his face.

Artemis stood on the bank behind him. There was a set and vengeful look in her eye. And a large bucket in her hands.

“You _monster_ ,” she hissed, and swept the bucket full of stream-water again. “Defiler. BEAST! _FIEND!_ ”

He saw the next bucketload of water coming, and ducked, but not fast enough.

“ENOUGH!” he roared, surging towards Artemis, only to trip and fall upon his fundament in the water. His curses fair blistered the air around them.

“To think I felt such joy to find you home!” Artemis dropped her bucket and strode into the water to loom over the drenched knight. “Mother was so happy! So proud of you! The honor you would bring to us! HONOR!” She kicked up another splash at him. “Not home TWO DAYS and here you are…hiding from the harvest work…and attacking my friend like a dog in rut! Ohhhh, I should SHOOT you!”

“You damned scold,” he muttered, struggling to stand. “I leave to serve our King and this is what I find when I return? Mother should have married you off - could she find a man fool enough to wed you, you harpy - “

“Kore! Kore, are you hurt?” Disdaining Apollo, Artemis moved towards the bank, and now worry shadowed the anger on her face. “Shall I call your mother?”

Risen, sodden, Apollo took the girl’s arm with ill grace - though less violently than his grip on Kore had been - and tried to pull her away. “Leave it,” he barked. “I didn’t hurt the wench. I’m sure her hovel awaits her.”

Artemis turned her face up to his, and something in her eyes stopped his words.

“Hovel,” she said.

“Artemis…” he tugged at her arm again, weakly. “Twas but a lark - “

“Aye, _larking_ ,” she hissed. “With Demeter’s _daughter_.”

There was a vast, heavy silence. Apollo stared down at Artemis, gape-mouthed, dripping.

Kore delicately extracted herself from the blackberry canes, and stood up on the bank, watching them.

“Sir Apollo,” she said, and her voice was colder than the water.

“Mi - uh, lady - “ he tried to say, and faltered into silence again.

“My _brother_ ,” Artemis said, full of regret.

Apollo looked down, searching for something - words, perhaps, or his vanished dignity. He saw the strands of dark hair caught in his fingers and frantically brushed them away, like spiders.

Kore drew up as much regality as she could manage, and strode across the streambed. “Prithee, join me, Artemis,” she said. “Mother will be pleased to see you.”

And, locking arms, basket and bucket retrieved, the girls swept away towards the path, leaving Apollo - bewildered, sodden, sour with humiliation - alone behind them, in the rising dark.

***

Gold-bright August mellowed slowly into September. 

Harvest work continued, and preparations for the coming frost; cellars filled with crocks and barrels, and hunters filtered slowly through the edges of the Kingswood, the howls of their dogs echoing around the trees; wagons came, were loaded up, and left again, bearing away the King's share of their labor. 

Kore prayed that Apollo's blundering encounter would keep him away, but it was not to be. Leto visited with the siblings in tow. Artemis was fractious, and stuck close to Kore, grumbling imprecations against her sib; but Apollo was sweet and charming to Demeter, bearing gifts and honeyed words. 

Demeter, cynical, nevertheless showed him courtesy, and his visits - always with Leto, very proper - became a weekly affair.

No one told of that day by the stream.

He was, Kore reflected, sickening. His presence stole her ease. Behind her mother's back he _watched_ her, as a hawk might watch a hare, judging which way it might run. There was a daily tension in her stomach that started at dawn, twisting like a cold snake, and never really fading.

She began to feel quite ill with it.

The morning meal was simple groat porridge, and sliced bread with jam, a simple hearty repast, a pleasant ritual of normalcy.

Soon she was avoiding it. Waking early, soothing her hunger with mugs of cool water. By noontime she would be ravenous, and found herself slipping into the kitchen for second helpings. 

When Leto and the twins joined their evening meal, she ate quietly and escaped as soon as she may, the meal heavy as iron in her gut. Other nights, she would linger, picking over the dishes set before her; the food was ambrosial, or it was cold ash in her mouth; she ate like a bird or like an army, with no in-between.

People began to look at her askance, when they thought she could not see, and whisper.

On the equinox they feasted, long tables set out in the bare field, music playing, children dancing. A great bonfire burned the first hint of chill from the air, and the best of their harvest was shared with good will. Soups thick and thin, salads full of cabbage and crisp radish slices. Stewed rabbit, baked fowl, stuffed with bread or fragrant grain. Sweet steamed puddings with plums and cream sauce thick as honey. Fruit wine and apple cider and ale.

They ate and they danced, and sung merry songs, and prayed grateful Grace to their Creator, thankful for His bounty, hopeful of an easy winter.

Kore embraced her mother, as the sun fell down below the trees. She climbed up to her room, at first moving with weary slowness, then all in a panicked rush; throwing shut the door behind her; pulling the chamber pot from its alcove, and falling to her knees before it, just in time.

How long it lasted, she never knew. 

Only that by the end - when she was left shaking and weak, wiping her mouth, turning her head away from the vile mess in the pot - when she looked up her door was open, and Demeter stood within it, and her mother's eyes were like Armageddon.

"Stand up, girl," she said.

Kore struggled to her feet. Weak as a new kitten. Her mother approached, and examined her so closely; looking at her eyes, her hair, pinching the back of her hand, counting the pulse in her throat.

At the end, brusquely, she reached down and pulled Kore's tunic up above her ribcage. Staring at her daughter's body with no expression at all.

"What have you done," she asked, in a voice that held the answer.

Kore pulled away from her mother. Her hands, slow and sure, slid down to rest upon her stomach, and the curve that had not been there yet in August. Protecting it.

"Daughter," Demeter said - said harshly, hopelessly - and closed her eyes.


	11. The Storm (1)

How strange and freeing, this descent.

There was nothing left to fear; the worst had come; her unforgivable sin, against God and Mother both, was held up to the light.

Honestly, Kore thought, it was a relief.

They were in the cellar, because it had thick walls, and a strong oak door that would lock. Demeter was risking no listening ears or prying eyes; there were enough whispers in the village already. Gossip spread like wildfire, and she had a standing and a business to maintain.

So, Kore sat on a stool there between the shelves of supplies and preserved food, row upon row of stoneware crocks and burlap bags. Her mother stood before her on the right, and Sister Athena to the left. Demeter’s face was pale and tight; Athena’s smooth, peaceful but unyielding, holding neither pity nor censure, like a saint’s statue, like a painting. They had been questioning her for… a turn of the hourglass? Two? 

Nor were they satisfied with her answers.

“Am I a monster?” Demeter asked, now. Tension and weariness hummed in her voice. “I have only tried to keep you safe from this. In God’s name we have made this time _golden_ for you - you are safe from barbarian raiders, from starvation and disease, from war, from - every ill fate that waits in the dark for you - did it only make you ignorant? Did you never LISTEN?”

“I made a choice,” Kore told her mother softly. “Perhaps it was the wrong choice, but it was mine.”

Demeter turned away.

Athena knelt down next to the girl, and took her hand; her skin was cool against Kore’s heat, soothing. “Child, you must tell us his name,” she said gently. “If you were attacked, we can petition the King for justice. You would not be held at fault - “

“Do not lie to my daughter,” Demeter said harshly, interrupting. “People judge as they will, they _delight_ in judging. A ruined woman is a pariah no matter the Crown’s opinion.”

Athena looked up at Demeter, wordlessly, until the older woman turned her face away and was silent. 

“God cannot gentle the hearts of men,” she told Kore, with a sad little smile. “We must find that on our own. But I will not hold you at fault, and on my word the Church will still accept you; when the child is born, you will be free to ask God’s blessing, and join our order, as before.”

“They would welcome me in the convent? Still?” Kore spoke slowly, looking down at her feet. Not from shame. She felt none. How could such a night of joy have been a thing of evil, or any fruit of that night be regretted? But if she was not to lay this at his feet - and she had determined long since that she would not - she must needs find another way to live. 

“They will not let you keep the child,” Demeter snapped. 

This made Athena look down, for a moment, breaking her steel composure. “This is true,” she admitted. “Children born...outside the sacred bounds of wedlock... are fostered out to others, to faithful women who have lost their own offspring, who will raise them within the faith. Such children need special teaching...and your instruction and redemption as a secluded Sister will not leave time for the raising of children.”

Give up her baby?

“No,” Kore said, and met Athena’s gaze, resolute. “The babe is mine.”

Athena pursed her lips, and nodded.

“I will not cast away my own blood,” Demeter said. “Keep your babe. But you must give me the name. If you were taken against your will, we will bring you justice. If not… I will dower you well enough to wed before the birth. My grandchild will _not_ be a bastard.”

The weight of this speech was clear on Demeter’s face, and in her clenched hands. It was this that hurt Kore the most; her mother’s heart must be shattered within her, yet she had forced this offer through her pain.

She sighed, and wiped her brow.

“It was not against my will,” she said. “But I have no name to give you. I am sorry, mother, I love you, but I cannot.”

The trio stood in thick silence. All their hours of talking kept circling back to this sticking point; the name. 

Was he a wedded man already? Had he threatened her? Some man of power she feared? A hundred times they must have asked. 

They could have her put to the Church’s question, if they would, Kore thought. She would never, _never_ give up his name.

Demeter rubbed her own face with both hands, roughly, and sighed. 

“Return to your chamber,” she said. “Sister Athena and I will discuss. There is time yet. I will have a meal sent up to you; do not leave your rooms or speak to anyone.”

As she left the room, Kore saw Athena put an arm around her mother’s shoulders, and - perhaps - saw her mother shiver, as if she were weeping.

She had never seen Demeter cry.

***

Two nights later, as Kore lay chasing sleep, there was a scratching rattle at her window.

Alarmed, she sat bolt upright, clutching her blanket; but before she could scream, or rise, the window creaked open, and a figure crawled through - thankfully, touched with moonlight, a recognizable one.

“Artemis?” Kore hissed.

“Shh!” Wide-eyed, Artemis crept across the room and settled on the edge of Kore’s bed. “Are you well? You’ve not been seen in days, and tongues are wagging, saying you’ve fallen ill, but mother visited today and Demeter turned her away!”

Kore took her hand. Her friend risked trouble coming to check on her - exactly her sort of adventure, impulsive and brave. “Oh, my dear,” she sighed. “I was warned about gossip...I am not ill. Not exactly.”

“What does THAT mean?” Artemis scowled and laid her free hand on Kore’s forehead, testing for fever. 

It surprised her, how slow the word was to come. She had never said it aloud before.

“Artemis,” she said. “I am with child.”

A long silence followed, before Artemis pulled her hands away. “No,” she breathed.

“Mother has had me confined to my room,” Kore continued. “She is fearsome angered with me... she and Athena both pressuring me for answers without cease...it is good to see a friend.”

Artemis looked away, and then back; wrung her strong hands together, paced back and forth. 

“Was it my brother?” she blurted, finally.

“What? No!” Kore sat up straighter, wide-eyed. “I swear to you, it was not! He but touched my arm, pulled my hair... unpleasant, but no more. Artemis, are you wroth with me? I know that it is...unexpected…”

“To find you expecting?” Artemis laughed, a low and rough chuckle. “When...who...in God’s name, Kore...I know not how to respond. I need...time.”

“Shall have three seasons’ worth,” Kore said, wry.

“I - I must go,” Artemis said, retreating towards the window. “Before some fool wanders past and sees my ladder.”

“Will you come back?” Heartache colored Kore’s voice; it was hard to watch her friend leave, her sole companion in more than a week. “Will you tell Eros for me? Please, Artemis…let me not languish here forgotten.”

“Kore…” Artemis paused, trapped by her thoughts, wavering. “I...I will tell Eros. You have my word.”

“God keep you, then, my friend,” Kore whispered; and Artemis turned, and climbed back out the window, without another word.

***

“Dress yourself,” Demeter said, from the doorway. “A visitor has come.”

It was late on a cool September morning; Kore sat in bed, still in her dressing-gown, embroidering a handkerchief. A tray nearby held bread-crusts, a tiny pot half-full of butter, an empty cup. 

“Who is it?” She set aside the vexing handkerchief - sewing had never been a beloved pastime, or come easily to Kore, but there were few enough ways to pass the time in her lonely bower. “Sister Athena again? Or Artemis and Eros? I have missed them…”

“Shall know soon enough. Dress well, and tie up your hair.” 

No further explanation came, and Demeter left her there. So, sighing, Kore opened her closet to find a gown appropriate to the time of day - not a difficult choice, as she only owned three formal dresses, not counting her green silk. How fortunate, she thought ruefully, that her selection still fit.

It felt strange to leave her room. And, early though it was, she felt the strange and subtle changing of her body affecting her balance. She held tight to the banister as she descended the stair.

Her mother’s sitting-room had always been a place of comfort for Kore; it was here she took her lessons, here that they met visitors, and here she snuck down to listen at the door while her mother held her business-talks, or chatty evenings with her lady friends. She was happy to be welcome there again, and came through the door with no trepidation; eager for company, and to regain her freedom.

And there in the doorway she froze, for on the little sofa across from her mother’s chair sat Leto; and beside her, with expression both angelic and repentant, was Apollo.

He rose when he saw her, giving what she supposed should seem a loving smile.

“My dearest,” he intoned lightly. “Please, forgive my lateness. I was surprised - but so happy - to learn of your condition…”

Kore felt herself grow cold, a spear of ice sliding into her heart. She looked to her mother; and saw Demeter look at her as though she were a stranger, and then turn her gaze back to Leto. They looked at each other, and nodded.

“Mother?” Kore said faintly.

“Apollo has come forward,” Demeter said, “given his apology, as he aught...and has vowed to fulfill his duty, and take you to wife.”

***


	12. The Storm (2)

Alone in her bower, Kore wept, and soon the skies joined her, clouded over as thick and grey as her poor, broken heart.

All her pleading had availed her naught. Demeter was a bar of iron that would bend no more for her fallen child. All Kore's wants and thoughts were set aside, while Demeter and Leto took the reins of her life, negotiating out her future with Apollo; how the rest of her days would be spent, on the valuable properties Demeter offered as her dowry. She would make him wealthy. She would keep his home while he was away on the Crown’s business. She would raise his children. 

She would go to his bed every night.

A stone lay in her chest, heavy and cold, pressing her down. 

And it rained for three full days.

On the third day, the servant who brought her supper mentioned the weather. How lucky the harvest had been mostly gotten in before the skies turned! All the fields were mud-pits, she prattled, and less than five miles away a mudslide had swept away an entire coop of chickens, and the little stream at Demeter’s western border was a raging flood now, a horseman had tried to cross it that morning and had nearly been swept away, dear God, would the rains never stop? Count your blessings you’re kept abed, little Kore, it is the wrath of God outside.

Lightning split the sky outside her window when those last words were spoken, and the servant crossed herself and rushed off downstairs. Seconds later, thunder grumbled and muttered, making the house tremble.

For a moment - there in the room of her childhood, at the nadir of her lifetime, with the rain outside and no hope waiting in the morning - for a moment, her thoughts strayed toward that raging flood.

It was an option. She could wait until night and don the pretty green dress she’d met Hades in, and walk there barefoot through the rain-shot dark, and be free of everything forever.

Then she barked out a harsh laugh, and wiped her tears away. She found her travel-bag, with its leather strap to hang from her shoulder, and began to pack.

No note for her mother. Surely her absence in the morning would be enough.

It was long after midnight when she made her escape; the whole house asleep, and the rain slowed to a misty dripping, rents in the racing ouds above showing glimpses of the moon. _Slow, and careful,_ Kore repeated in her mind, as she eased her body out of the window and found the old familiar footholds on the brickwork below it. She had taken this secret route many times before, but her balance was strange now, and she had a heavy pack to carry and an oilcloth cloak too, to keep the rain off. Her poor overworked heart was in her throat the whole way down.

Then to the shed where mother kept her plow-horses, two reliable old mares who shied at nothing; she gave an apple to each, and took the younger from its stall, a sweet bay named Iris that never complained when the village children climbed up on her to be led around and around in circles, or braided flowers in her mane. They owned no saddle, but plenty of horse-blankets, and a few leather surcingles in good repair; and soon Kore was atop the big familiar beast, reins in hand, swaying together through the dark and the rain.

A good steady clip got them to, and through, town before daybreak. The clearing from the faire was but a mile further, on farmland that had been left fallow this year. With all tents and booths gone, and only the central bonfire-ring remaining, Kore made her best guess at where she had entered the forest in her flight - that night, a lifetime ago.

She slipped carefully down from Iris' broad back.

"Here, girl," she told the horse, and fed it another apple from her bag. "Good, good girl. Eat, and then find your way home."

She left the horse there, nosing at the wet ground for dropped apple bits, and without a glance back, walked resolutely into the arms of the forest.

***

She had made her escape in sturdy boots, not the delicate slippers of the fair, and soon she was glad of it. The forest floor was a treacherous mess, and between cloud-cover and what remained of the leaf canopy this late in the year, the rising sun's light was muted quite away. She slipped and stumbled along, muttering all the curses she knew, bare branches snatching at the hood of her cloak. The bag over her shoulder became an irritation, and then a misery, as hour followed hour of slow progress..

_Lead me not in circles, _she prayed.__

__The forest around her only dripped rain in answer._ _

__Finally - it must have been almost noon - the trees parted before her; and there in its little clearing was the twisted oak she had climbed that night. She drew in a great breath, and released it all at once, overcome with a sudden burst of hope._ _

__She had her cold lunch there among the oak's roots, boiled eggs and a bit of bread and cheese; and then, overcome, she found a little hollow nearby, and curled into her cloak to sleep, with the soft rain murmuring and pattering all around her._ _

__And in this sleep, restless and lonely, Kore dreamed._ _

__She was armored - brilliant steel armor, all engraved with flowers; she bore a standard, waving in the breeze behind her, and its image was the double rose, blue and white, entwining on a cloth of brilliant green. But her steed was Iris, her mother's placid ploughmare. And the golden path that lay before them arced up over a fierce river, whose waters grabbed at it and threatened to wash it away._ _

__Beyond the river, at the golden path's end, stood a tall tower, all sheathed in ice._ _

__Hades lay within._ _

__Though there was no evidence of this, her heart knew it, as surely as it knew the pace of her pulse. He was there, encased, waiting. And time was moving. Time was _racing_._ _

__Iris shifted beneath her, snorted and pawed the ground; Kore found herself leaning forward over the horse's withers, and lowering the pole of her standard until it pointed straight forward, as a lance would._ _

__"Run!" She cried - joyfully, eagerly - and Iris ran._ _

__The water rose to meet them, but Iris outpaced it, leapt away like a pheasant exploding from the brush. Here in the dreamworld she was spry as a yearling, and her pace ate up the ground. All in a rush they were across the bridge, and the tower of ice loomed before them, swelling as they drew closer._ _

__Kore set the lance more firmly by her side, and called for more speed; Iris gave it to her, never quailing, though they drove across the golden stones straight towards a solid mass of ice._ _

__They moved as one; never slowing, never turning. Kore saw their wavering reflection in the ice as they approached, and the fierceness of her visage made her heart leap with gladness._ _

__The last few seconds ticked away._ _

__Kore saw the tip of her lance meet its reflection._ _

__Then the dream shattered; it burst into a million shards of light all around her, with a sound of crystal bells rung in celebration; and she woke blinking, staring amazed at the forest around her, which was again just a forest._ _

__It was raining steadily again, and her back was aching sore; and the sun, it seemed, was going down._ _

__"God's _foot_ ," she swore, and struggled to her feet. She would not be climbing any trees to navigate, not in this rain, not burdened as she was. And she disliked the thought of spending another night alone in this wood, in the rain._ _

__As she thought this, a shivering howl split the night, and her heart froze._ _

__Then, as best she could, Kore ran._ _

__***_ _

__Sliding, stumbling, Kore made her way between the trees - desperately afraid of breaking an ankle, but just as afraid of whatever cried in the darkness behind her. It seemed every time she slowed, the howls grew louder, closer. More hungry._ _

__She found the gates, at last - at the end of her strength and endurance - by running right into them, in the dark._ _

__And they were locked._ _

__"Oh gods - help! Lord Hades! HELP!" she cried, despairing. She could not fit between the bars, or climb the wall, better constructed than the tower and slick with rain besides. Blind groping at the ground provided her a stick; pathetically small, but something, at least. Resolutely Kore set her back to the gates and prepared her final stand._ _

__Far above, a hole in the clouds slid over the moon, and lit the ground before her. There was a renewed howling, a rustling among the trees, her terror driven to nigh overwhelm her, and then...and then, with joyous barking, Lord Hades' three dogs burst from the underbrush and leapt upon her in a frenzy of licking and tail-wagging._ _

__"God in Heaven!" Kore swore, and then laughed, laughed herself nearly sick with relief. "Dread beasts! I shall tell Lord Hades of your misbehavior, doubt me not!"_ _

__"His Lordship is not here to tell," spoke a voice from behind her, behind the locked gates, a voice smooth, urbane, curious...and female._ _

__Kore's heart dropped with sudden horror._ _

__She turned; and found the woman behind the gate, black-haired, trim and well-dressed in modest blue wool, eyeing her thoughtfully._ _

__"Are you - he never said - " Kore stumbled over the words. "Lady, are you...his wife?"_ _

__The woman's face did something complicated, eyebrows arching and eyes wide. "Thank all the gods, _no_ ," she said with dismay. "I am his seneschal. My name is Hecate. Do you have business with Lord Hades? Perhaps I could take a message for him?"_ _

__"A message," Kore said, feeling a strange lightness in her head, her hands and feet growing cold. "I don't think...I…"_ _

__And with a surrendering sigh, Kore's knees failed, and dropped her swooning to the ground, leaving Hades' dogs snuffling curiously at her crumpled form._ _


	13. The Visitor

ONE MONTH AGO

The serving-man seemed nervous.

Hades wondered why. He was always at least polite to them. Perchance they found his silence odd, or his stillness as they dressed him in the fine court clothes Minthe had chosen for him. He had not always...been…

The thought drifted away.

Drifting had become his daily state since Minthe, his beauteous and genteel betrothed, had come. Nothing beyond her presence and her happiness seemed to matter overmuch. Zeus avoided him, but what of that? Truly, life was more pleasant that way. There were no decisions required of him. He need not be embroiled in his brother's sordid life. In the administration of their kingdom, which was exhausting. 

"My lord, the lady Minthe," one of his attendants announced - belatedly, as she swept through the door without pausing and drew straight to his side.

She was resplendent in cloth-of-gold and crimson velvet. The scent of rose and vetiver clung to her, and ropes of pearl wound around her slender neck in a thick collar.

He was inspected - Minthe walking a tight circle around him, checking every angle - and knew he fit her approval when her gloved hand rested lightly on his forearm.

"Go to court," she said.

So to court they went.

This had become their routine. He woke in his bed, alone, at dawn; servants brought him food and dressed him; Minthe appeared, judged him worthy or unworthy, and they went to Zeus' throneroom, which seemed a merry place of late. The King had entertainers, always, and much fine food and drink. 

Hera seemed ever absent, but perhaps her piety kept her closeted away.

Zeus never spoke to him and almost never met his eye, but that was well. 

It is in the nature of Kings to be busy.

And in truth they never seemed to stay long at court. He and Minthe would stand together, her hand on his arm, while people approached to speak with her and then went away again. He merely stood, benign and patient. His betrothed, his wise and loving bride, would tell him, were there aught he needed to do or say.

In the hot, close environs of the throneroom - how suffocated he felt by it sometimes - she was a breath of cool, fresh air.

After some time, an attendant would come and lead him back to his rooms. They sat him near his desk, and took their leave without speaking, locking his chamber door as they went.

Alone, he sat and thought of Minthe.

The evening meal appeared, was eaten, and disappeared again.

Servants readied him for bed as the sun went down.

He lay down, alone, and slept.

So it had been since the day his bride appeared. It soothed him. There were no more surprises, no conflict, no cares.

There was only Minthe.

***

One day a servant came to his rooms early, but that was all right. The sun had not yet risen when the lock of his door snapping open broke his slumber; Hades looked up to find a silvery shimmer filling the air, and see the guard at his door nod abruptly into snoring slumber. 

The new servant was slender, and wrapped in a dark cloak; he wondered, idly, if it were cold in the palace halls.

"Aidoneus!" the cloaked servant hissed, and pulled back the hood of her cloak. The silver illuminated her face, reflected in her dark eyes.

"Hecate," he said. "Hast come to meet my bride?"

She made a muted, frustrated sound and darted to his side. "No, idiot. Shhh. Has she hurt you? Did she give you aught to eat or drink that seemed strange? Look here."

She took his face in her hands and pushed his eyelids up, peering into his eyes; then his mouth, prodding at his gums with a sharp forefinger. "Have you been cut or stabbed with something?"

His mumbled answer was nonsensical until, with a grimace, she pulled her finger out of his mouth and wiped it dry against his pillow. 

"Nothing like that," he said. "Everything is fine. I am to be wed soon. Your cloak is inside-out, Hecate."

"Yes." She took a small bottle from the pouch at her waist, and the glass and water-jug from his nightstand. "I should never have let you come back here alone."

"It is well. Art here now, and in time for the wedding." He sat up, at her urging, and watched with mild curiosity as she mixed some dark, herb-scented liquid with water in his cup. "Hast thou seen my bride? Is she not fair?"

"Aye, the fairest of folk," Hecate muttered. She was stirring the liquid now, counter-clockwise, with a slender dagger.

"Drink this for me," she said. She brought the cup to him and held it out. "Drink, and see clearly."

He raised his hands for the cup - and paused.

"It grows hot," he observed, with growing discomfort. "Where is Minthe?"

"Speak not her name!" Hecate insisted - casting a glance at the door. "By all the gods, _drink_ , Aidonaeus, we have so little time - "

There was a sound at the door.

Hecate looked down at him; her eyes were angry, and sad. And then the silver light vanished.

The door opened, and there was his lady, all clad in white; her face was still, serene, but there was a fire light in her eyes that unsettled. 

"Aidoneus," she said. "Who was here? Where are they?"

Behind a tall bookcase on the left side of the room, from the corner of his eye, he saw Hecate pullung the hood of her robe up again. She stepped into the room thus, fully cowled, but Minthe seemed not to see her.

"I had a dream," he said, without knowing why. The words seemed to rise up unbidden from inside his head. "Did I disturb thee, my lady?"

As he spoke, Hecate slipped through his chamber door, and was gone.

"You saw no one?" She put her lovely, cool hand on his forehead, and he fair swooned with relief. 

"No one," he agreed.

Minthe looked around the room, scowling. Noticing the missing goblet. The sleeping guard.

"Fine," she said, blunt and abrupt. "Sleep."

He tried to explain to her that he was not tired, but fell asleep before the words would come.

His dreams were of their wedding, and they were sweet.


	14. The Revelation

A sharp, unpleasant smell woke Kore from her swoon. She sneezed, twice, and opened her eyes.

She was indoors. Lying on some low, cushioned bench. Candles burned nearby, many of them, fat beeswax cylinders casting their golden glow against curved stone walls, strangely wrought statues, and hundreds on hundreds of glass jars set on shelves around the room. 

The seneschal - Hecate - was next to her, holding a lamp in one hand, and a twisted, broken sprig of some herb in the other. It was this that made the smell; clearly the woman had broken it and held it for Kore to breathe in.

"Welcome back to the world," Hecate said. There was little gentleness in her voice. "You are safe and, as best I can determine, hale."

"I - thank you...madame seneschal?" Kore tripped over the words, and blushed. "Forgive me, I do not know the right words…"

"Hecate. I need no titles." 

She helped Kore to sit up, and brought her a cup of cool water. Kore looked around as she sipped; the room was large, as large as the cellar at home, and broadly circular. Shelves lined the walls, and held many things - books, jars and bottles, clay jugs, boxes of different sizes, plants in pots. Candles, unlit, in different colors. A round mirror of black glass, big as a dinner plate, set in a silver standing frame. A tall hearth, unlit, with a fat black pot inside. She could see several doors, all oak; all closed.

"These are my chambers, my workroom," Hecate said, answering Kore's unspoken question. "I brought you here after your collapse. You'll come to no harm here. I do...however...have questions."

Hecate's blade-sharp gaze took in Kore's mussed hair and bedraggled state; her bare feet, scratched legs, rain-soaked and mud-streaked clothes...and the swell of her belly, revealed where the wet cloth clung to her shape.

Kore drew in a deep breath, and lied.

"Lord Hades is a friend of my family," she said. "I was travelling home and something spooked my horse - she ran through the wood and I was thrown and I knew the lord's keep was here - "

She looked up at Hecate, beseeching.

Hecate pursed her lips, arched one slender eyebrow, and said "Rubbish."

She took back the cup from Kore's nerveless fingers and set it down nearby.

"I know who you are," she said. "I know that your mother carries unjust hatred in her heart for Aidoneus, and I know why. I know...many things." 

The candlelight guttered and faded as Hecate leaned in towards Kore, who had a solid wall of stone behind her and no path to escape; the seneschal's eyes seemed to grow, and a shadow of wildness lay around her, not threatening, but unchancy. Kore felt her skin crawl.

"Tell me, little refugee," Hecate said, quiet, curious as a cat with a helpless mouse. "Who fathered the child you bear?"

There was some pressure upon her, nothing she recognized or understood; a weight in her mind and her heart, searching, probing. She was held by those eyes as if pinned in place. 

But Demeter’s daughter had steel in her spine. Kore grit her teeth together and stiffened her back, meeting Hecate’s searching gaze steadfastly. “I...I swore,” she said. “I swore I would not tell. It is my business and his. Not my mother’s - not the Church’s - and _not yours_.”

For a long moment they strove, Hecate’s dark fierce will against Kore’s devoted heart. The room grew dark and close; the pressure was tangible, impossible. 

And then it was gone, all at once. Air and light surrounded Kore. Hecate stood, no longer threatening, but laughing, soft and cynical.

“Well,” she said. “Aidoneus, I know not if you are an idiot, or were gifted with prophecy. It’s all right, child, you did well. I had to know if you were another threat to him.”

The contest of wills had left Kore dazed, but Hecate’s words cut through. “Another threat?” she asked sharply. “Is Lord Hades in danger?”

“You care?” Hecate said. “Do you _truly_ care? You cannot have known him long...not even a fortnight. A few days? A single night?”

Kore flushed, remembering. “Yes,” she said. “Even though our time together was...short.”

Hecate sat next to her on the bench. She seemed softer now; asking, not demanding.

“Why?” she said.

Kore twisted her fingers together, fitfully, thinking. Remembering.

“He was kind,” she said at last. “When he had no need to be. Kind - thoughtful...funny without mocking; and…” 

Her breath hitched in her chest, and she looked up at Hecate as her eyes began to brim with tears.

“And so lonely,” she whispered, and saw an answering sadness in the seneschal’s face.

She swiped at her eyes, brushing tears away, and sighed.

“I had not meant to come back here,” she admitted to Hecate, who watched her quietly. “But my mother - when she found out - set her mind to wed me off, to...someone I do not like. I have a little money…I meant only to spend the night out of the rain, somewhere mother would not guess to find me, and perhaps beg of him help in reaching a city - I have some domestic skill; I could find work…”

“He would do that, and more, were he free,” Hecate said. “But he is not.”

“Tell me, please.” 

Hecate stood, sighing. She paced the room, touching things seemingly at random; a glass jar full of dried herbs, a gleaming silvery rapier hung upon the wall, the black mirror on its shelf.

“Child of Demeter,” she said at last. “Kore. Are you brave?”

An unexpected question, and one that drew a soft laugh from Kore, as she thought back to her first night here, clinging to the side of the tower above. “Lord Hades said so,” she said, “but also that bravery might conceal foolhardiness. I hardly know which to claim.”

“Aidoneus is at court,” Hecate said. “Where he is held captive by the Queen of Fairy.”

Silence.

“Well, brave or not I see you think me a fool,” Kore said, and stood. She wanted to laugh, and cry, and shout at this smug woman. “I am grateful for your hospitality; but show me the stair, and I shall find my own way out.”

“You could save him.” Hecate stood before the hearth now, and held out her hands to it; flames leapt up, though standing as she was Kore could not see what instrument she used to set the logs alight. “If you love him, _only_ you can save him.”

“And how shall I do that? Shall I march into the castle in my rags, carrying a lord’s bastard, to be mocked and turned away?” Rage balled her hands into fists, bared her teeth in a grim smile. “I come here - alone! Afraid! Seeking the _barest sliver_ of help! And it pleases you to give me a - a fairy story for children! I told Lord Hades I was no child, and I tell you the same. Let me leave this place. Let me go!”

Hecate turned, then, away from the fire. Backlit, she was a dark shadow; but her eyes...her eyes blazed, gold as the fire, gold as the sun.

“A fairy story for children?” 

She stalked forward, and the flames wreathing behind her seemed to follow, haloing her like the sun in eclipse; her eyes gleamed, her teeth, and a wave of heat and light surrounded Kore. Shutting her off from the room; from the world. She was a tiny lost thing, and Hecate’s eyes were her universe.

“You’d best start believing in fairy stories, little Kore,” Hecate said, her voice shaking the very foundations of the world. “You’re in one.”

***

“Elves - the fairy, the fae, the kindly ones - are elder; they were here before us. They may be here after us, should we fail, someday in the future. They are not immortal, but years will not kill them, and they do not succumb to illness as we do; only injury, or poison, can take the life of an Elf. But it can be done.”

An hour had passed. Hecate’s power had struck her quite dumb; and seeing this, the seneschal had foregone further argument in favor of letting Kore clean herself, and dress in clean clothes, and eat. “You’ll do Hades no good if your body fails,” she had said, and gently chivvied the girl through bath and clothes and a meal of bread and cheese. 

Afterwards, she led Kore back to her workroom, and began a lecture of sorts.

“If they are so powerful,” Kore asked - still mazed by the knowledge that had twisted her understanding of the world. “So ancient - why do they not rule over us? Why are they hidden?”

“We’re faster,” Hecate said, and shrugged. “They birth children rarely, and those children grow slowly. We - as you well know - kindle with astonishing quickness.”

Kore blushed; Hecate smirked, and continued.

“Their powers are not endless. And I do not know fully their nature or their extent. They can _glamour_ \- addle the mind with illusions. Some beasts will obey their commands - horses, wolves, bees. They have some deeper connection with the earth and with growing things than we do. But we, too, have power. And though we cannot access it, use it in the same way - _they_ can...they can take it from us. Through our blood.”

Hecate had grown very solemn, and Kore shivered, feeling the menace of those words. 

“I fear that is why they have gone to the castle, why Aidoneus is in their power.” 

“To - to _kill_ him? To take his blood?” She felt faint and nauseated, just saying the words, but she had to know. God above, she had to know - 

Hecate sighed. “I do not know,” she admitted, and Kore could hear the frustration and concern trembling in her voice. “I know there is a ritual. In their place, their land, which we cannot reach; it is magical and hidden by magic. But there is a time in the year when those borders are thin...and they, if they have one, can bring a human across. Not every year or even every ten. But those taken do not return.

“I tried to save him…but I did not have time. _She_ was too close.” Hecate looked down at her hands, as if to condemn their emptiness. “He is hale of body, but his mind is lost in dreams. He was able to lie - to hide my presence from Her - and this is good, but not enough. She will put her strongest magics on him for the journey to their land; he could never break it. Nor...could I.”

Kore felt Hecate’s gaze fall on her again, and now it blazed with hope.

“But _you_ can.”


	15. The Crossroad

Days passed, and the leaves turned with them, setting the world aflame in red, yellow, rust.

It was the last day of October and frost was on the grass when servants led Hades out to the royal stable, where a train of horses waited, their breath steaming in the chill air. Minthe and her retainers - there were more of them than he had realised, a proper cavalcade - were already mounted, all dressed as he was in rich, warm travelling clothes. Minthe herself sat a blood-red bay delicate as a deer, silver bells and ribbons in its mane. At her right hand was a huge Frisian, black as moonless night, saddled and bridled for him.

As he mounted, Zeus came out of the palace, still in his night clothes and trailing alarmed attendants.

"You're leaving! Why are you leaving?" the king demanded. "Where are you going?"

Minthe turned her bay to give him a cold smile. "We go to my home, for our wedding," she said. "It is our custom."

"Lady, you told me nothing of this!" Zeus, angry, reached for the bay's bridle, but it snatched its head back from his hand with serpentine swiftness, and bared its teeth.

"It is none of your concern," Minthe said.

Hades felt the black steed shift uneasily beneath him, and laid a reassuring hand on its withers. The air around them warmed.

The king stopped in his tracks. Misery lined his face, which made no sense to Hades. Should not all be glad on this, his wedding day?

"At least let us attend - myself, the Queen - he is Our brother," Zeus said. "Lady - "

"No," Minthe said, still smiling. 

A wave of something, some shimmering light, rippled outward from her raised hand. The king staggered backward; his attendants as well - one simply turned and fled.

"This is a day of great power," she said. "You, your Majesty, and your court, should stay inside till morn. Strange things walk the roads and fields, and you may not be...safe."

"Aidoneus," Zeus said, softly.

Minthe turned from the king and took Hades' hand. "Let us go, my love," she crooned. 

Lost in her voice, he took up the reins, and followed her through the palace gates.

He did not look back.

***

_There is power in mortal blood, power that elves crave; but they are also weak against it, and if we but learn its secrets, we can defend…_

Kore lay in a clump of tall grasses near the Kingsroad, where a lesser road crossed it, and waited, thinking on what she had learned. It was cold and damp, with a small pond nearby, and she hoped no stray dog or perceptive traveller would spot her, huddled under the grayish cloak Hecate had commanded her to wear inside-out. 

_You carry Aidoneus' child; you are bound to him, bound by blood. It gives you power against their glamour. It gives you a chance. The only chance._

The sun made his slow progress across the aching blue autumn sky. Kore watched the shadows moving, sliding with infinite slowness over the ground as the day reached its zenith. Hecate had packed her a bag with food and other things; she ate, cold cheese and egg-rich bread and a little jar of olives, drank from a flask of clear water, and settled back into her little hollow. Waiting. Thinking.

_They will come down the road like a royal progress; there may be three of them, or thirty, but do not mind their numbers. Your contest is with the Queen, and not all her subjects love her. Elves love wagers and battles of will. I expect they will choose to observe, and see if their Queen's power will prevail…_

She remembered the acrid sting of the ointment Hecate had rubbed around her eyes - for elvensight, the seneschal explained. It burned cold, and made the world seem to waver and shine before her.  
She strove not to rub her eyes.

The sun began his long, slow fall into night.

Cold blue shadows gathered beneath the nearby trees; far above Kore heard the harsh cries of geese, flying south, fleeing the winter to come. Part of her wished to fly with them. She was pregnant, without family or friend beyond a strange woman with mystic powers, such as she had been taught all her life were given by the Lord of Lies. Thinking of it, she made the sign of the cross. This quest was madness. Possibly evil. She felt adrift in a black ocean, deep waters she had never suspected.

But nothing in her short life had felt as… _right_ , as _good_ as her brief time with Lord Hades. And whether good or evil, she believed Hecate cared for him, in her way.

Forgive me, God, she prayed there between the reeds. I am in love, and love guides me.

Darkness slid across the land. Rabbits crept out to feed in the little dell; she heard a scream as an owl took one, and shuddered.

 _Stay awake,_ Hecate had commanded. She found the flask of strong tea in her pack, and drank that, though it had long gone cold; soon its virtue seeped in, and she felt refreshed.

Between the trees she could glimpse a fat, yellow moon cresting the horizon.

Before it had fully risen, she heard hoofbeats in the distance. Faint. Coming closer.

Her heart froze in her chest.

_Let them ride past. Make no sound, make no move, until you see Aidoneus; he will be mounted on a black horse, riding at the Queen's right hand._

Closer. Closer still. She heard wingbeats as their passage shied birds from the nearby brush. Heard the nicker of a horse, and voices, wordless at this distance but musical, beautiful. 

A silvery glow began to swell from the south, along the kingsroad, limning each stem and leaf, mixing strangely with the light of that gibbous golden moon.

And from that light came the riders.

Kore, struck mindless, could only stare. 

They were tall and slender, and their steeds the same, all barded with silver, bells chiming gently in time with their steady gait. Some of the riders were fair, and some dark, but all had a beauty that struck Kore's heart; she felt herself a base and muddy thing, unworthy of their light, crouched in the mud like a toad. 

_You must be brave. Their very presence twists the mind; remember why you are there, remember your babe, and you shall find clarity._

Two by two they passed, gleaming. Kore clenched her teeth and her fists, and focused her will; the light around them faltered, and she glimpsed their truth. Tall and slender, aye, and dressed like lords...but their faces were strange, angular and alien; eyes black with no glimpse of white, lips thin and flat. Nothing of love or joy lived in those faces. Only hunger.

And there was the Queen, all in red, on her bay, an aura of cruel power around her; and there was Hades beside her, on a mountain of a horse, riding as though half asleep. 

Kore stared. The ointment showed her lines of silver light wound around her lover like fine-knit chains, at wrist and throat, and how those lines came together in the Queen's hand.

His beauty and his captivity rent her heart.

_Wait until they come level with you. Until they are just past you. Before they pass entire you must run to him - as fast as you can, Kore, you must reach him before She sees you -_

They were there. They were passing, slowly, walking their horses in a graceful gait.

Give me strength, Kore prayed. And flung herself, a bird in flight, out of the grass, sprinting in a few swift steps to Hades' side.

_Pull him from his horse…_

This had worried her; he was so much larger, and his elven steed seemed massive, a looming shadow in the dark. But she jumped, and caught, and pulled with all her might. And Hades, bespelled out of a rider's reflexes, slid sideways and toppled from the saddle with ease.

Shrill cries from the riders around her. Their steeds whipped around, coming towards her; the Queen's face, her true face, made horrible with hate.

_Hold him tightly. Be brave - you must not let him go, whatever happens._

"Give him back!" The Queen commanded. She struck the flank of Hades' horse and it leapt away, leaving nothing but air between them. Her will beat down upon Kore, hot like a gust of air from a bread-oven, and her voice was loud, louder than should have been possible from that slender frame. "Give me back my prize!"

"No," Kore said, and hid her face against Hades' shoulder, clinging tightly to his unmoving form. "This is my lover, my babe's father, and I claim him; he is not yours."

The queen hissed like a snake, and in that sound were words, a sharp-sounding tongue that Kore knew not.

But she knew, when Hades began to twist in her embrace, what it meant.

_She will use her glamour against you. Aidoneus will change in your arms…_

Terror, cold and hard, struck Kore as she felt Hades' very shape begin to change. His fine clothes turned to thick, wiry fur; his face lengthened, eyes yellowing like the moon; he was a wolf, and his charnel breath scorched her face as he snapped and fought against her.

_Illusion. Glamour. Do not fear him, and do not let go!_

Kore ducked her head away from that monstrous mouth, and dug her fingers into the creature's pelt; it howled and snapped, but no bite came, and then it changed again. 

Fur became cold, wet scale. Long loops of muscle slid around her, squeezing tight, and a great serpent bared its gleaming, arm-long fangs in her face, the tips dripping green venom that sizzled and hissed.

_Any creature, real or imagined - from fable or song - she will use to break your hold. Be faithful and true, Kore, and you will come to no harm…_

The serpent became a tiger, its claws longer than her hand; then a leering green-skinned goblin, pawing at her and shrieking curses; then something with wings, huge dusky leathern wings that threatened to pull her into the sky with it.

Roars and screams assaulted her ears, wind buffeted her body; waves of exhaustion and pain swept through her, but still, she held fast. For her babe. For her love.

_She has one true power, and will try it last; you must be ready, for this alone may hurt you both._

Within the circle of her arms, Hades shrank in upon himself. He became a black stone - no, she realized. Not a stone.

A coal.

And as she thought this, he burst aflame in her hands.

_Take him to water -_

She rose with a straining cry, hoarse and low, as fire ate at her palms and inner arms. The coal had not the weight of a grown man, praise God, but it was heavy enough; the pain was astonishing, overwhelming, as she ran from the road, praying, sobbing.

With a burst of effort she cast them both together into the little pond.

She looked up through the water and saw the moon above, golden.

The cold water bit into her at once, killing the flames that licked her. The coal in her arms swelled, stretched, became flesh; and she surfaced with Hades in her arms, himself again, naked and shivering.

_Wrap him in your cloak. Her power will be spent; even a simple ward, an inside-out garment, will be enough protection. Elves are mazed by things backward or wrongwise - make use of that, quickly..._

Kore pulled the wide grey cloak around Hades, as much of him as it would cover; his dear head on her shoulder, and his broad scarred back, and hoped the pond would hide the rest.

A long shriek of rage shivered the air around them. Looking back, she saw the Queen atop her bay, standing near the side of the road, as if ready to leap down toward the pond; her courtiers were all gathered off to the side, watching, and Kore thought she saw some thin, cruel smiles among them. One spoke, in that bladed tongue.

A moment of silence, poised as if on knife's edge, the night holding fast its breath.

"Savor your victory, human child," the Queen said. "It will _never_ come again."

Then she turned, and the elven host turned with her. They rode together, in the moonlight and their own elflight, gold and silver mixed, until the forest swallowed them, and at last even the sound of their bells faded away to nothing.

Shivering in the water, wrapped around her lover, Kore heard a night bird resume its sweet, natural song.

"Kore? ...why are we in a pond?" Hades said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one more chapter to wrap this story up, but we've reached the end of the Tam Lin story. Thank you for coming with me! If you want to know more about the original fairy tale, this youtube video is my favorite on the subject: https://youtu.be/UF3O6Xkpscs  
> Thanks for reading, and expect that last chapter by the end of the month!


	16. The End and the Beginning

When Hecate found them - she had been waiting, not far away, with horses - Hades had dressed in clothes from Kore’s pack, and wrapped her in a dry cloak, and built them a fire. There he sat staring into the flame, brow knotted, deep in thought; and poor Kore was asleep in his arms, her head at rest upon his shoulder. 

“Dear old friend,” he murmured as Hecate came to him, but he did not yet look away from the fire. “I feel a decade older. And yet a weight is lifted from my mind.”

“You will feel hale again once you are home, and have slept true and natural sleep,” she said, quietly. “Being under such magic is an ordeal to the body, as a long march or an illness would be. Your strength will return. As will hers.”

Now he looked up at his seneschal, his friend; and she saw the hope and the fear in his eyes.

“Leave thy worries for the morrow,” she advised, and gave him a rare smile. “Come, I will help you with her.”

Together they got Hades ahorse, and Kore lifted up into his arms again; she murmured fretfully, but did not seem to fully wake. He sat his steed gamely, but Hecate had brought a lead, and the mount calmly followed her in a slow progress back along the road home. 

He looked around at the world as they rode. Having come back from that dark, muffled time of the spell, when all his senses had seemed wrapped in wool, everything felt crisp and new. Leaves crunching under their horses’ hooves, wind soughing in the tree branches; the feel of Kore in his arms, warm and vital, breathing, even snoring lightly. 

He had many questions. But, he thought, looking down at his most precious cargo, Hecate had the right of it; questions could wait. Answers could wait.

He had been saved.

***

Kore awoke to the sound of birds scolding outside her window. A familiar sound, yet somehow wrong; she stretched, and opened her eyes to find she was not in her own chamber. The window was further away, and set in a curved stone wall, not one of wood and plaster. Her blanket was eiderdown, and a tapestry on the wall showed deer loping through a birch wood.

Not Demeter’s house at all.

Memory came back in a dizzying rush. Her flight; her struggle against the scarlet Queen; the icy water...Lord Hades. She remembered sputtering to the surface of the pond, helping each other out of the cold mud, finding her pack...the pain of burns on her hands...and then, nothing.

This must be Hades’ keep again, she thought, and breathed a comforted sigh.

She had feared for her hands, but found them neatly bandaged and much less painful, her fingers only lightly reddened. The scent of some herbal ointment was on them. Hecate’s work, no doubt. Rising from the bed brought her breath hissing through her teeth - her overworked body protesting - but she forced herself to stretch and twist, to stand upright and walk a few paces back and forth, and the sharp pains settled into a muted ache. 

A basin and pitcher had been left for her, and clean cloths; and after refreshing herself there, and using the chamberpot, she found a long chemise and woolen robe laid out for her atop a chair, and soft slippers beneath.

Clean, clothed, and curious, she left the chamber, and began to search for her hosts.

Hades’ keep was modest; she did not wander long before finding the staircase, and the statue of Hades’ mother, past which she remembered the way. Warm, welcome smells of baking filled the air near the kitchen, and her stomach rumbled eagerly. She hurried to the door.

“...child is yours,” she heard, and stopped just outside the door. Hecate’s voice, low and solemn.

A long silence.

“I cannot be a father,” Hades said. 

Kore’s heart froze in her chest. An aching, shivering pain.

“Any idiot can be a father - thus you certainly qualify,” Hecate said, tartly. A gusty sigh from Hades.

“Do not jest, not about this. Hecate - remember!” he said. “How _he_ was. A monster. I dare not risk - “

“You are not he.” Hecate, stern now and insistent. “You are good. Honest. Honorable. I have never heard you speak a cruel word, never seen you raise your hand to any save in the course of justice. You are your mother’s child, Aidoneus. You have always done what was needful. And they _need_ you.”

Another long silence, as Kore stood in the hall, hands clasped over her mouth like a child.

“And I think you need them, old friend,” Hecate said. Softer. “You have been alone too long. You need more than this old hedge witch for company.”

Their silence stretched out; Kore wondered if it was safe to make her entrance now, to pretend she had only just arrived at the door.

“Do you know, when she first saw me, she asked if I was your _wife_?”

There was a strangled, choked sound, and then laughter; Hades laughing, as though he were unused to it.

"Come here, Kore," Hecate called, making her totter back a half-step in surprise. She wondered - not for the first time, nor the last - what Hecate truly was, and what extent her powers.

But that was for another day. Right now, she must needs face Lord Hades.

Kore steeled herself, and crossed the threshold.

“Fair morning to you both,” she said evenly, though her heart leapt about beneath her breast at the sight of him. 

“Fair morning, Kore.” His smile was tired, and grave, but it was there. “Come and break thy fast. Thy efforts last night were great, and Hecate insists we both must rest and feed ourselves aplenty to recover.” 

The seneschal nodded, and pressed a warm cup into her hands; it was full of some dark, herbal-scented liquid, and steamed lightly. “And drink this tonic, aye. You need strengthening.” She pressed one hand to Kore’s upper arm - a comforting touch, a bit of smile tilting her mouth - and then she moved to the door.

“Ah…Hecate?” Hades half-stood, a strange, almost fretful look on his face. “Wilt thou not stay and eat with us?”

“I will not. I go to my workroom, to record last night’s events. You, my lord, and your - guest - should converse without me hovering.” She nodded, decisively, and slipped from the room like a shadow, closing the door firmly behind her.

Hades slid back into his seat, blinking. He looked at the table for a long moment - toyed with a wooden spoon that sat beside his half-emptied plate - and then met her eyes again. 

“I owe my life to thee,” he said. 

Kore felt her throat tighten on her words, without her even knowing what they were. She sipped at the drink Hecate had given her - not unpleasant, but sweet and rich with honey - and fought for control. 

“Lord Hades,” she said at last, wretched and heartsore, “I have not come to demand anything of you. I did not - my actions, last night, were not meant to put you in my debt. You are good, and I could not leave you to that evil. You owe me nothing. Not money or lands or - “ 

“Kore…” he said.

“Or a name,” she whispered, and crossed her arms over the curve of her belly, and closed her eyes.

She could not look - but she heard him stand, and then he was next to her, taking one knee beside her; she felt his arms slip around her so gently, and pull her close against him.

“Dost thou fear I am angered?” he asked, in a voice so gentle it touched her very heart, as her tears fell. “Kore...sweetling, it is not so.” 

“Why not?!” She cried, voice thick with tears. “Your good name, I have threatened it with my heedlessness! Before God I swear, my lord, I did not plan it so. I will go away - find work somewhere - I never gave your name, not even when Mother bade me marry - “

“Kore. Kore, dear one, stop.” Hades tilted her head back, wiped her tears away with infinite tenderness. “Shhh now. Breathe, and listen to me. All is well. I _swear_ to you, all is well…” 

He rocked her in his arms, there in his kitchen; murmuring soft words of comfort, and stroking her soft hair and along her back. Slowly she regained control, and at last took the napkin he handed her from the breakfast table to dry her reddened eyes. 

“Now,” he said to her, cradling her cheek in one hand. “I do not abhor thee, Kore. Tis true I did not expect this, but I am grown, as thou art - if ‘twas heedlessness, surely we both had our share of it, yes?” He smiled at her, a true and sweet smile, one she could not help but return.

“And for my part - I did not plan to seduce thee to catch a pretty young bride - “

Kore gasped and stuttered out the beginning of a shocked disavowal, before seeing the mirth in his eyes and huffing out an outraged breath. “Ah! Scoundrel!” she accused, but quietly, and could not contain a laugh.

“But,” he said slowly, “I will not lie to thee...I do not dislike the idea.”

“The...the idea of…” she said, haltingly, as heat rose in her face. 

“Of wedding you, Kore,” he murmured. “If thou didst not wish it, I understand - I am older, and still strange to you. I would never force thee, sweetling. But it would please me well.”

She looked at him for a long moment, wide-eyed, silent and thoughtful, and he endured her gaze calmly. 

“I do not know if I would be a good wife,” she said.

“I do not know if I would be a good husband,” he answered. “We can but try, and learn together.”

“I am strong-willed, and may not be always biddable and sweet,” she warned.

“Be thou my partner in all things, and not my servant,” he said. “I wish for nothing else.”

“My mother,” she said, and he sighed.

“Sweet Kore, thou faced the Queen of Fairy for me - if thou wish it, I will face thy mother.”

Her fingers twined with his, squeezing tight, and the infant shadow of a smile shone forth from her eyes.

“Ask me,” she told Hades. “Ask me properly, my lord.”

He was, she observed, already on one knee.

“Kore, brave and wise and fair child of Demeter,” he said, his voice low and intense, his gaze never leaving hers. “It would be my greatest pleasure...my greatest honor...if thou would consent to be my bride, and spend thy life with me. I will never take thy freedom. I will cherish and protect thee...and our child. Our family.”

“Hades…” Kore whispered, and tears fell once more.

“My name is Aidoneus,” he said, just as quietly, and she saw his eyes brimmed just as hers. “Please, Kore...my thief, my love, my savior, call me thus now and forevermore...will thou marry me?”

“Aidoneus.” She pulled their joined hands to her face and rested her cheek against them, crying, laughing. “I will!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to everyone who's read along with me. I appreciate the time you've spent, the comments and kudos.
> 
> I intended to just do the Tam Lin story...but I have to say I'm really enjoying this world, and there's so much more I could dig into. I haven't touched on the war, and of course there's the wedding and the KIDS... anyway, what I'm saying is I might do a second fic to follow this one. We'll see!

**Author's Note:**

> Lore Olympus AU inspired by the folktale (and songs about) the captive knight Tam Lin, and his brave rescuer Janet. Listen to the Fairport Convention song sometime, it's good.
> 
> The dialect is almost certainly not historically accurate and I haven't bothered to set a time period beyond Ye Olde Middle Ages. I am using the characters' canon names instead of medieval-sounding pastiche for ease of identification by the reader.


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